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The Journal of Neuroscience, May 1, 2001, 21(9):2929-2938
How Protein Kinase C Activation Protects Nerve Cells from
Oxidative Stress-Induced Cell Death
Pamela
Maher
Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La
Jolla, California 92037
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ABSTRACT |
Oxidative stress is implicated in the nerve cell death that occurs
in a variety of neurological disorders, and the loss of protein kinase
C (PKC) activity has been coupled to the severity of the damage. The
functional relationship between stress, PKC, and cell death is,
however, unknown. Using an immortalized hippocampal cell line that is
particularly sensitive to oxidative stress, I show that activation of
PKC by the phorbol ester tetradecanoylphorbol acetate (TPA) inhibits
cell death via the stimulation of a complex protein phosphorylation
pathway. TPA treatment leads to the rapid activation of extracellular
signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK), the
inactivation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and the
downregulation of PKC . Inhibition of either ERK or JNK activation
blocks TPA-mediated protection, whereas p38 MAPK and PKC inhibitors
block stress-induced nerve cell death. Both p38 MAPK inactivation and
JNK activation appear to be downstream of ERK because an agent that
blocks ERK activation also blocks the modulation of these other MAP
kinase family members by TPA treatment. Thus, the protection from
oxidative stress afforded nerve cells by PKC activity requires the
combined modulation of multiple enzyme pathways and suggests why the
loss of PKC activity contributes to nerve cell death.
Key words:
oxidative stress; programmed cell death; MAP kinases; protein kinase C; oxidative glutamate toxicity; reactive oxygen
species
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INTRODUCTION |
Although programmed cell death (PCD) plays an
important role in the normal development of the nervous system, in
adults, PCD is associated with the neuronal cell loss in
neurodegenerative disease and trauma (Rubin, 1997 ). In all of these
cases, PCD has been linked to oxidative stress and the production of
reactive oxygen species (ROS) (Ames et al., 1993 ; Coyle and
Puttfarcken, 1993 ; Beal, 1995 ; Rubin, 1997 ). One potential mechanism
for the generation of ROS in the CNS is via the excitatory amino acid glutamate. Two pathways for glutamate toxicity have been described: excitotoxicity (Olney, 1969 ), which occurs through activation of
ionotropic glutamate receptors, and oxidative glutamate toxicity (Murphy et al., 1989 ), which is mediated via a series of disturbances to the redox homeostasis of the cell. In the latter case, glutamate blocks cystine uptake via the inhibition of the glutamate/cystine antiporter, resulting in decreases in intracellular cysteine and glutathione (GSH), which can eventually lead to cell death (Murphy et
al., 1989 ). The IC50 for inhibition of cystine
uptake by extracellular glutamate is 50 µM (Sagara and
Schubert, 1998 ), well within the range attainable in the damaged
nervous system (Newcomb et al., 1997 ; McAdoo et al., 1999 ). A critical
role of GSH in protecting neuronal cells from PCD has been suggested by
a number of in vitro and in vivo studies (for
review, see Schulz et al., 2000 ). For instance, in Parkinson's
disease patients, there is an early and specific decrease in GSH
that precedes cell death. Similarly, GSH falls during ischemia
(Koroshetz and Moskowitz, 1996 ). Thus, the early drop in cellular GSH
levels seen in oxidative glutamate toxicity is very similar to changes
seen in vivo in neuronal cells responding to both acute and
chronic injury.
In addition to decreases in GSH, the loss of protein kinase C (PKC)
activity is an essential element in the process of cell death in
neurons exposed to oxidative stress, and a rapid decline in PKC
activity is a prognostic feature of lethal damage to neurons after both
ischemia in vivo and hypoxic and excitotoxic insults in vitro (Durkin et al., 1997 and references therein).
However, why the maintenance of PKC activity leads to the protection of nerve cells from oxidative stress-induced cell death was unclear.
HT22 cells are a hippocampal cell line that lacks ionotropic glutamate
receptors but is sensitive to glutamate-induced cell death via the
oxidative pathway (Maher and Davis, 1996 ; Li et al., 1997b ). The form
of PCD seen in this model of oxidative stress has many of the
characteristics of PCD seen in other systems (Tan et al., 1998a ,b ). A
colleague and I found that activation of PKC by the phorbol ester
tetradecanoylphorbol acetate (TPA) blocks oxidative glutamate
toxicity in both the HT22 cells and primary cultures of cortical
neurons (Davis and Maher, 1994 ). This report describes the pathways
involved in PKC-mediated protection of nerve cells from oxidative
stress-induced death. The complexity of this process suggests why
studies with PKC inhibitors or activators have at times yielded
contradictory results.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
Materials. PD98059 was obtained from BIOMOL">Biomol (Plymouth
Meeting, PA) and solubilized in DMSO. PD184352, SB202190,
SB203580, SB202474, Go6983, and
Ro318220 were obtained from Calbiochem (La Jolla,
CA) and solubilized in DMSO. Other chemicals and inhibitors were from
Sigma (St. Louis, MO) or Research Biochemicals (Natick, MA). The
dominant negative-c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (DN-JNK) construct was
obtained from G. Sanna and R. Ulevitch at The Scripps Research
Institute (Sanna et al., 1998 ).
HT22 cell culture and viability assays. HT-4 cells, a mouse
hippocampal cell line immortalized with a temperature-sensitive SV-40
T-antigen, were obtained from B. H. Morimoto and D. E. Koshland (University of California, Berkeley, CA) (Morimoto and
Koshland, 1990 ) and subcloned. The HT-22 clone was the most sensitive
to glutamate of the 25 clones tested and was used in the experiments described herein. The HT-22 clone was characterized in detail with
respect to ionotropic glutamate receptors and found to have none (Maher
and Davis, 1996 ). Cells were maintained at 37°C in DMEM-10%
fetal calf serum and passaged by trypsinization. Cell viability was
routinely assayed at 37°C using the MTT assay (Hansen et al., 1989 ).
For this assay, cells were plated into 96-well plates at 5 × 103 cells per well in complete medium, and
24 hr later the experimental agents were added. The ability of the
cells to reduce MTT was assayed 24 hr after the addition of the
experimental agents, exactly as described previously (Davis and Maher,
1994 ). Controls using wells without cells and cells without glutamate
were used to determine the effects of agents on the assay chemistry or
cell viability, respectively. In all cases, the cells were examined
under phase-contrast microscopy before the addition of MTT to visually
assess the degree of cell death. Similar results were obtained using
either a colony-forming assay (Cook and Mitchell, 1989 ) or a lactate
dehydrogenase release assay.
Primary cortical cultures and viability studies. Primary
cortical neurons were prepared from embryonic day 17 rats as described previously (Li et al., 1997b ) and maintained in minimal essential medium supplemented with 30 mM glucose, 2 mM glutamine, 1 mM
pyruvate, and 10% fetal calf serum. Cell viability was assayed at
37°C using the MTT assay. For this assay, cells were plated on
poly-L-lysine-coated 96-well dishes at
5 × 104 cells per well in growth
medium, and 24 hr later the experimental agents were added. The ability
of the cells to reduce MTT was assayed 24 hr after the addition of the
experimental agents. Controls using wells without cells and cells
without glutamate were used to determine the effects of agents on the
assay chemistry or cell viability, respectively.
SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting. Proteins were separated on 10%
SDS-polyacrylamide gels and transferred to nitrocellulose. Transfers were blocked for 2 hr at room temperature with 5% nonfat milk in
TBS-0.1% Tween 20 and then incubated overnight at 4°C in the primary antibody diluted in 5% BSA in TBS-0.05% Tween 20. The primary antibodies used were as follows: phospho-specific p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) antibody (1:1000; catalog #9211), phospho-specific MAPK antibody (1:1000; catalog #9101), phospho-specific JNK/stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK)
antibody (1:1000; catalog #9251), and JNK/SAPK antibody (1:1000;
catalog #9252) from New England Biolabs (Beverly, MA); p38 MAP kinase antibody (1:1000; catalog #sc-728) from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa
Cruz, CA); and pan extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) antibody
(1:5000) and all of the PKC antibodies from Transduction Laboratories
(Lexington, KY). The transfers were rinsed with TBS-0.05% Tween 20 and incubated for 1 hr at room temperature in horseradish peroxidase-goat anti-rabbit or goat anti-mouse (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA)
diluted 1:5000 in 5% nonfat milk in TBS-0.1% Tween 20. The immunoblots were developed with the Super Signal reagent (Pierce, Rockford, IL). Autoradiograms were scanned using a ScanJet 4C/T scanner
(Hewlett Packard), and the labeled bands were quantified using NIH
Image (version 1.61).
MAPK-activated protein kinase-2. Cells in 60 mm dishes were
solubilized in 500 µl of 1% Triton X-100 in 50 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 1 mM EDTA,
1 mM
Na3VO4, 0.1%
2-mercaptoethanol, 5 mM sodium pyrophosphate, 10 mM sodium glycerophosphate, 50 mM NaF, 0.1 mM PMSF, 1 µg/ml aprotinin, and 1 µg/ml leupeptin. MAPK-activated protein
(MAPKAP) kinase-2 in the supernatants was collected with
sheep anti-rabbit MAPKAP kinase-2 (Upstate Biotechnology, Lake
Placid, NY) preabsorbed to protein G-Sepharose. The immunoprecipitates
were washed once with solubilization buffer containing 500 mM NaCl, once with solubilization buffer, and
once with kinase assay buffer and resuspended in 30 µl of kinase
assay buffer (in mM: 20 MOPS, pH 7.2, 25 sodium
glycerophosphate, 5 EGTA, 1 Na3VO4, and 1 DTT)
containing 25 mM MgCl2, 150 µM ATP, 10 µCi/assay
[ -32P]ATP (ICN Biochemicals, Costa
Mesa, CA), and 62.5 µM MAPKAP kinase-2 substrate peptide (Upstate Biotechnology). After incubation at 30°C
for 30 min, the protein G-Sepharose beads were pelleted, and the
supernatants were transferred to P81 phosphocellulose paper disks. The
disks were washed three times with 1% phosphoric acid and once with
H2O and counted in a liquid scintillation counter.
Transfection assays. Cells were transfected with 0.5 µg of
pcDNA3.1/lacZ and 0.5 µg of either empty vector
(pcDNA3.1) or DN-JNK using Effectene (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany).
Twenty-four hours after transfection, the cells were treated with
glutamate and/or TPA for 24 hr, after which they were fixed and stained
with
5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl- -D-galactopyranoside (X-gal) (Ausubel et al., 1999 ), and the number of blue cells per 35 mm dish was determined microscopically.
ROS measurement. ROS production was detected using the dye
dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCF) as described after a 10 hr
treatment with glutamate (Tan et al., 1998a ). A 10 hr treatment with
glutamate was shown previously to result in maximal ROS production (Tan et al., 1998a ). DCF was added to the cells during dissociation with
pancreatin. After incubation for 10 min at 37°C, the cells were
washed and filtered. Propidium iodide was used to gate for live cells.
Data were collected with a FACScan cell scanner using the data
acquisition program CELLQuest (Becton Dickinson, Cockeysville, MD). DCF
data were collected with an excitation wavelength of 475 nm and an
emission wavelength of 525 nm. Ten thousand live cells, as
determined by the lack of propidium iodide fluorescence, were analyzed
per sample. DCF data were plotted as histograms, and the sample values
were divided by the control value to yield the ratiometric increase in
DCF fluorescence for each treatment.
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RESULTS |
Previously, a colleague and I showed that the activation of PKC by
the phorbol ester TPA blocks oxidative glutamate toxicity in both the
HT22 cells and primary cultures of cortical neurons (Davis and Maher,
1994 ). However, neither the generality of this protection nor the
mechanisms underlying it were determined. The studies described below
were performed to answer these questions. TPA not only protects the
HT22 cells from oxidative glutamate toxicity, but it also blocks cell
death induced by either glutathione depletion using the glutathione
synthesis inhibitor buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) or by the inhibition
of cystine uptake using homocysteic acid (HCA) (Fig.
1). Thus, PKC activation protects cells
from various forms of oxidative stress, strongly suggesting that
additional investigation into its mechanism of action is warranted.

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Figure 1.
TPA protects HT22 cells from multiple forms of
oxidative stress. HT22 cells were untreated or treated with 5 mM glutamate, 1 mM BSO, or 2.5 mM
HCA in the absence or presence of 100 ng/ml TPA. Percent
survival was measured after 24 hr by the MTT method. The data represent
the mean ± SD of three independent experiments, with each point
done in quadruplicate.
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When HT22 cells or cortical neurons are exposed to glutamate, there is
a rapid decline in intracellular GSH, followed by a large increase in
the level of peroxides. Previous studies indicated that, although TPA
had no effect on this initial drop in GSH levels, it did need to be
added to the cells within 4 hr after the addition of glutamate to
inhibit cell death (Davis and Maher, 1994 ), suggesting that TPA blocked
a relatively early step in the pathway leading to cell death. Thus, it
was of interest to determine whether it blocked the increase in ROS
induced by glutamate treatment. Surprisingly, TPA had no effect on the
increase in ROS production seen after the addition of glutamate to the
cells (data not shown), indicating that the protective effect of TPA
was mediated via the induction of one or more pathways whose activity
could counteract the effects of ROS production rather than via a direct
effect on ROS production itself.
To further characterize the role of PKC in neuronal cell death, I
focused on signaling pathways that had been shown previously to be
activated by PKC and were implicated in cell death in other systems.
One of these pathways involves the ERKs, whose activation has been
implicated in the protection from cell death in a variety of different
systems (Xia et al., 1995 ; Guvillier et al., 1996 ; Wang et al.,
1998 ; Singer et al., 1999 ). Accordingly, I first examined the effect of
a specific inhibitor of ERK activation, the ERK-specific
mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitor PD98059 (Cohen,
1998 ) on the ability of TPA to protect HT22 cells from oxidative
glutamate toxicity. As shown in Figure 2A, PD98059
significantly reduced the protection from cell death afforded by
treatment with TPA, whereas PD98059 alone had little effect on
glutamate-induced cell death. The negative effect of MEK inhibition on
the TPA-mediated protection from oxidative glutamate toxicity was
substantiated with a new, structurally and functionally distinct MEK
inhibitor, PD184352 (Sebolt-Leopold et al., 1999 ) (Fig.
2A). Similar results were obtained with PD98059 and
primary cortical neurons (Fig. 2B). Consistent with
these data, ERK activity, as assayed by immunoblotting with an antibody
against the phosphorylated, and thereby activated, form of ERK, was
relatively high in untreated HT22 cells and decreased slightly by 8 hr
of glutamate treatment (Fig. 2C). The viability of the HT22
cells also remains constant for 8 hr in the presence of glutamate but
falls sharply after 10 hr of glutamate treatment (Li et al., 1997a ). A
slight decrease in ERK activation after 8 hr of glutamate treatment was
also seen with the primary cortical neurons (Fig. 2C). In
contrast to these data are two studies in which glutamate treatment
stimulated ERK activation in the HT22 cells (Satoh et al., 2000 ;
Stanciu et al., 2000 ). This difference may be attributable to
differences in the responsiveness of the ERK pathway in HT22 cells
cultured in different laboratories or to the effects of cell density on
ERK activation. All of my biochemical studies were performed on cells
cultured at the same density as that used in the cell death assays.
Cells cultured at higher densities do not die and do not show the same responses in biochemical assays.

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Figure 2.
ERK activity is required for TPA-mediated
protection. A, HT22 cells were treated with 5 mM glutamate alone (Ct) or in the presence
of 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA), 50 µM PD98059
(PD98059), TPA plus 50 µM PD98059
(PD98059/TPA), 5 µM PD184352
(PD184352), TPA plus 5 µM PD184352
(PD184352/TPA), or TPA plus 1 µM dimethyl
sphingosine (DMS/TPA). Percent survival was measured
after 24 hr by the MTT method. The data represent the mean ± SD
of three to five independent experiments, with each point done in
quadruplicate. * indicates not significantly different from glutamate
(glu) plus TPA (Student's t
test); ** indicates significantly different from cells treated with
glutamate plus dimethyl sphingosine plus TPA
(p < 0.0001; Student's t
test) and cells treated with glutamate plus TPA
(p < 0.005; Student's t
test). B, Primary cortical neurons were treated with 5 mM glutamate alone (Glu) or in the presence
of 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA), 50 µM PD98059
(PD), or TPA plus 50 µM PD98059
(PD/TPA). Cell survival was measured after 24 hr by the
MTT method, and the results are presented as the percentage of the cell
death seen in the presence of glutamate (30-40%), which is
arbitrarily set at 100%. PD98059 (50 µM) alone had
little effect on cell survival (91.5 ± 5.2% of the cells in
untreated controls). The data represent the mean ± SD of a single
experiment, with each point done in quadruplicate. Similar results were
obtained in two independent experiments. C, Time course
showing the effect of glutamate on ERK activity in HT22 cells and
primary cortical neurons. Cells were untreated (ct) or
treated for up to 10 hr with 5 mM glutamate. The cells were
scraped into sample buffer and analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting
with an antibody specific for phosphorylated ERKs (anti-phospho
ERK) and an antibody that detects phosphorylated and
unphosphorylated ERKs (anti-ERK). Similar results
were obtained in three (HT22 cells) and two (primary neurons)
independent experiments. D, HT22 cells were untreated
(ct) or treated with 5 mM glutamate
(glu), 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA),
glutamate plus TPA (TPA/glu), 50 µM
PD98059 (PD), glutamate plus PD98059
(PD/glu), or glutamate plus TPA and PD98059
(TPA/PD/glu) for 8 hr. The cells were scraped into
sample buffer and analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting with an
antibody specific for phosphorylated ERKs (anti-phospho
ERK) and an antibody that detects phosphorylated and
unphosphorylated ERKs (anti-ERK). Similar results
were obtained in five independent experiments.
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To provide additional evidence that at least one of the effects of TPA
involves ERK activation, I assayed ERK activation after TPA treatment
in the presence and absence of glutamate and/or PD98059. Figure
2D demonstrates that not only did TPA induce a twofold increase in ERK activation, but it maintained this increase in
the presence of glutamate. Glutamate treatment itself caused a 20-30%
decrease in ERK activity (Fig. 2C,D). PD98059
greatly reduced the basal level of activated ERK and also reduced by
60-70% the increase in ERK activation brought about by TPA treatment in the presence of glutamate (Fig. 2B). Similar
results were seen with PD184352 (data not shown). However, dimethyl
sphingosine, an inhibitor of sphingosine kinase, had no effect on the
protection provided by TPA (Fig. 2A), indicating
that, unlike a previous study (Guvillier et al., 1996 ), PKC activation
did not lead to ERK activation through a pathway involving
sphingosine-1-phosphate.
Because some studies (Xia et al., 1995 ; Guvillier et al., 1996 ) have
suggested that protection from cell death is dependent on high levels
of ERK activity relative to the levels of both JNK and p38 MAP kinase
activity, I investigated the effects of both glutamate and TPA on the
activities of these other two MAPK family members using antibodies to
the activated forms of the enzymes. Glutamate alone increased p38 MAPK
activation severalfold (Fig.
3A), whereas TPA decreased p38
MAPK activation by 30-60% (Fig. 3A) and blocked the
increase in activation induced by glutamate treatment (Fig.
3A). These results were confirmed in an in vitro kinase assay in which the activity of a specific and direct substrate of p38 MAPK, MAPKAP kinase-2, was determined and used as an additional measure of p38 MAPK activation (Fig. 3C). In contrast to
these results with p38 MAPK, glutamate alone had no effect on JNK
activation (Fig. 3A), whereas TPA greatly increased JNK
activation both alone and in the presence of glutamate (Fig.
3A). Both the TPA-mediated increase in JNK activation and
the decrease in p38 MAPK activation were completely blocked by PD98059
(Fig. 3B), indicating that the activation of both of these
kinases are regulated by ERKs. However, it is unlikely that the
activation of JNK is dependent on the inactivation of p38 MAPK because
p38 MAPK inhibitors did not stimulate JNK activation (data not
shown).

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Figure 3.
Effects of glutamate and TPA on p38 MAPK and JNK
activities. A, HT22 cells were untreated
(ct) or treated with 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA),
5 mM glutamate (glu), or glutamate
plus TPA (TPA/glu) for 8 hr. The cells were scraped into
sample buffer and analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting with an
antibody specific for phosphorylated p38 MAPK (anti-phospho
p38) and an antibody that detects phosphorylated and
unphosphorylated p38 MAPK (anti-p38) or an antibody
specific for phosphorylated JNK (anti-phospho
JNK) and an antibody that detects phosphorylated and
unphosphorylated JNK (anti-JNK). Similar results
were obtained in five independent experiments. B, HT22
cells were untreated (ct) or treated with 100 ng/ml TPA
(TPA), 50 µM PD98059 (PD),
or PD98059 and TPA (PD/TPA) for 1 hr. Cells were
pretreated with PD98059 for 1 hr before the addition of TPA. The cells
were scraped into sample buffer and analyzed by SDS-PAGE and
immunoblotting with antibodies specific for the activated forms of p38
MAP kinase (anti-phospho p38) and JNK
(anti-phospho JNK), as well as with antibodies
that recognize both active and inactive forms of these proteins
(anti-p38, anti-JNK). Similar
results were obtained in three independent experiments.
C, The effect of TPA and glutamate on MAPKAP kinase-2
activity. HT22 cells were untreated (Ct) or treated with
5 mM glutamate (glu), 100 ng/ml TPA
(TPA), or TPA plus glutamate (TPA/glu)
for 8 hr. The cells were then solubilized in Triton X-100 buffer,
MAPKAP kinase-2 was immunoprecipitated from the extracts, and the
kinase activity was assayed using a peptide substrate and liquid
scintillation counting. The results represent the average of four
independent experiments.
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One mechanism whereby ERKs could effect the downregulation of p38 MAPK
activity is through the activation of specific phosphatases belonging
to the MAP kinase phosphatase (MKP) family (for review, see Haneda et
al., 1998 ; Keyse, 1999 ). To determine whether the downregulation of p38
MAPK activity by TPA in the HT22 cells is mediated by phosphatases, I
tested the effect of sodium orthovanadate, which was shown to inhibit
several different MKPs (Misra-Press et al., 1995 ; Tanoue et al., 1999 ),
as well as protein tyrosine phosphatases. As shown in Figure
4A, sodium
orthovanadate alone stimulates ERK activity, and it slightly enhances
the activation of ERKs induced by TPA. Furthermore, sodium
orthovanadate not only stimulates basal p38 MAPK activity but it also
inhibits the TPA-induced decrease in p38 MAPK activity. These results
were confirmed in the in vitro kinase assay for MAPKAP
kinase-2 activation (Fig. 4B) and are consistent with
an inhibition of phosphatase activity by sodium orthovanadate,
suggesting that the downregulation of p38 MAPK activity is attributable
to the ERK-dependent activation of one or more MKPs. Interestingly,
sodium orthovanadate stimulated the activation of JNK isoforms distinct
from those activated by TPA (Fig. 4A). These data
further indicate that the activities of JNK and p38 MAPK are regulated
independently by ERKs and suggest that the phosphatase activity induced
by TPA activation of ERKs is specific to p38 MAPK.

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Figure 4.
A, TPA-dependent activation of p38
MAPK is inhibited by sodium orthovanadate. HT22 cells were untreated
(ct) or treated with 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA),
1 mM sodium orthovanadate
(VO4), or TPA plus sodium
orthovanadate (VO4/TPA) for 1 hr. Cells were pretreated with sodium orthovanadate for 1 hr before the
addition of TPA. The cells were scraped into sample buffer and analyzed
by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting with antibodies specific for the
activated forms of ERK (anti-phospho ERK), p38
MAP kinase (anti-phospho p38), and JNK
(anti-phospho JNK), as well as with antibodies
that recognize both active and inactive forms of these proteins
(anti-ERK, anti-p38,
anti-JNK). Similar results were obtained in three
independent experiments. B, The effect of sodium
orthovanadate on MAPKAP kinase-2 activity. HT22 cells were untreated
(ct) or treated with 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA),
1 mM sodium orthovanadate
(VO4), or TPA plus sodium
orthovanadate (VO4/TPA) for 1 hr. Cells were pretreated with sodium orthovanadate for 1 hr before the
addition of TPA. The cells were then solubilized in Triton X-100
buffer, MAPKAP kinase-2 was immunoprecipitated from the extracts, and
kinase activity was assayed using a peptide substrate and liquid
scintillation counting. The results represent the average of four
independent experiments.
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To determine whether p38 MAPK activation plays a role in oxidative
glutamate toxicity, I used two specific inhibitors of p38 MAPK
activity, SB202190 and SB203580 (Cohen, 1998 ), and tested their ability
to block cell death. Both of these compounds effectively inhibited cell
death induced by several different forms of oxidative stress, including
glutamate treatment (Fig. 5A),
confirming a critical role for p38 MAPK activity in promoting cell
death. Neither compound had any effect on either the decrease in
glutathione levels or the increase in ROS production brought about by
treatment with glutamate (data not shown), further indicating that the
pathways regulated by TPA do not directly affect ROS production. In
contrast, an inactive analog of these compounds, SB202474, was not
effective at inhibiting oxidative stress-induced cell death (Fig.
5A). Similar results were obtained with primary cortical
neurons (Fig. 5B).

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Figure 5.
JNK activation and p38 MAPK inactivation play
roles in TPA-mediated protection from oxidative glutamate toxicity.
A, HT22 cells were treated with 5 mM
glutamate (Glu), 2.5 mM HCA
(HCA), or cysteine-free medium ( Cys) in
the absence or presence of 10 µM SB202190, SB203580, or
SB202474. Percent survival was measured after 24 hr by the MTT method.
The data represent the mean ± SD of three independent
experiments, with each point done in quadruplicate. B,
Primary cortical neurons were treated with 5 mM glutamate
(Glu) in the absence or presence of 10 µM
SB202190 or SB203580 or 0.5 µM rottlerin. Cell survival
was measured after 24 hr by the MTT method, and the results are
presented as the percentage of the cell death seen in the presence
of glutamate (30-40%), which is arbitrarily set at 100%. The data
represent the mean ± SD of a single experiment, with each point
done in quadruplicate. Similar results were obtained in two independent
experiments. C, HT22 cells were transfected with DN-JNK
or empty vector along with pcDNA/lacZ. Twenty-four
hours later, the cells were treated with 5 mM glutamate in
the absence or presence of 100 ng/ml TPA. After 24 hr, the cells were
fixed and stained with X-gal, and the number of blue cells in five
independent fields was counted. The data represent the mean ± SD
of five independent experiments. * indicates significantly different
from vector with TPA plus glutamate and JNK with TPA plus glutamate
(p = 0.02; ANOVA).
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To assess the role of JNK activation in TPA-mediated protection from
oxidative glutamate toxicity, I used DN-JNK, which blocks JNK
activation in several different cell types (Sanna et al., 1998 ). Cells
were cotransfected with plasmids containing DN-JNK and
lacZ to mark the transfected cells and then treated
with TPA and/or glutamate. As shown in Figure 5C, expression
of DN-JNK reduced the protective effect afforded by TPA treatment by
~50%, whereas wild-type JNK had no effect on cell survival under any of the conditions tested. Together, these experiments indicate that
both the activation of JNK and the inactivation of p38 MAPK are
required for the protective actions of TPA treatment.
To understand further how PKC activation mediates protection from
oxidative stress-induced cell death, the possible PKC isozymes involved
in this protection must be identified. The PKC family at present
contains 10 different members, which can be divided into three groups
on the basis of structure and cofactor requirements (for review, see
Hug and Sarre, 1993 ; Nishizuka, 1995 ; Jaken, 1996 ; Mochly-Rosen and
Kauvar, 1998 ). Conventional PKCs ( , 1, 2, and ) require
negatively charged phospholipids, calcium, and diacylglycerol (DAG) for
optimal activity, whereas novel PKCs ( , , / , and )
require only phospholipids and DAG. Members of both of these groups are
also activated by phorbol esters, such as TPA, which interact with the
same site as DAG and eliminate the need for other cofactors. Atypical
PKCs ( and / ) do not require either calcium or DAG for maximal
activity and are not activated by phorbol esters. Similar to many other
types of cells, the HT22 cells express multiple PKC isozymes, including
the cPKC, PKC , the nPKCs, PKC and PKC , and the aPKCs, PKC ,
and PKC (Fig. 6A).
The HT22 cells do not express PKC 1, PKC 2, PKC , or PKC (data
not shown). To begin to determine which PKC isozymes are involved in
the protection from cell death, I took advantage of the observation
that treatment of cells with a high dose of TPA for 24 hr both
downregulates conventional and novel PKC isozymes (Szallasi et al.,
1994 ) and blocks the protective effect of TPA on the HT22 cells (Davis
and Maher, 1994 ). When the levels of the different PKC isozymes after a
24 hr treatment with 1 µg/ml TPA were examined, the levels of PKC ,
PKC , and PKC were all reduced significantly (Fig.
6A). As expected, the levels of the aPKCs, PKC ,
and PKC were unchanged. These data confirm that TPA-mediated
protection from cell death is dependent on conventional and/or novel
PKC isozymes.

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Figure 6.
Analysis of PKC isozymes involved in TPA-mediated
protection from oxidative glutamate toxicity. A, HT22
cells were untreated ( ) or treated (+) for 24 hr with 1 µg/ml TPA.
The cells were scraped into sample buffer, and equal amounts of protein
were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting with antibodies specific
for each of the indicated PKC isozymes. Similar results were obtained
in two independent experiments. B, HT22 cells were
untreated (ct) or pretreated for 1 hr with 1 µM Go6983 (Go), 5 µM rottlerin (rot), or 1 µM
Ro318220 (Ro) before the addition of 100 ng/ml TPA (TPA, rott/TPA,
Go/TPA, Ro/TPA) for 1 hr. The cells were
scraped into sample buffer and analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting
with antibodies specific for the activated forms of ERK
(anti-phospho ERK), p38 MAP kinase
(anti-phospho p38), and JNK (anti-phospho
JNK), as well as with antibodies that recognize both
active and inactive forms of these proteins (anti-ERK,
anti-p38, anti-JNK). Similar
results were obtained in three independent experiments.
C, HT22 cells were untreated (Ct) or
treated with 5 mM glutamate (Glu) in the
absence or presence of TPA and/or 5 µM rottlerin
(rott), 1 µM Go6983
(Go), or 1 µM Ro318220
(Ro). Percent survival was measured after 24 hr by the
MTT method. The data represent the mean ± SD of six independent
experiments, with each point done in quadruplicate.
|
|
To determine whether the nPKC, PKC , was involved in the
protective response elicited by TPA treatment, I used the relatively specific PKC inhibitor rottlerin (Hofmann, 1997 ; Corbit et al., 1999 ). Rottlerin had no effect on the activation of ERK and JNK and the
inactivation of p38 MAPK by TPA (Fig. 6B).
Furthermore, rottlerin did not block the protective effect of TPA but
instead inhibited oxidative glutamate toxicity (Fig. 6C),
suggesting that PKC plays a positive role in promoting cell death.
Rottlerin also blocked glutamate-induced cell death in primary cortical neurons (Fig. 5B).
Along with rottlerin, I tested several other, more general PKC
inhibitors for their effects on both the activities of the different
MAPK family members and the TPA-mediated protection from cell death.
Go6983, which inhibits the activity of all PKC isozymes except PKCµ (Zeidman et al., 1999 ), blocked ERK activation, JNK activation, and p38 MAPK inactivation (Fig. 6B),
as well as the inhibition of glutamate-induced cell death mediated by
TPA (Fig. 6C). Ro318220, which at the
concentration used inhibits both cPKCs and nPKCs (Wilkinson et al.,
1993 ), reduced ERK and JNK activation and inhibited p38 MAPK
inactivation (Fig. 6B) and also reduced the
TPA-mediated protection from cell death (Fig. 6C). These
data lend support to the studies with the more isozyme-specific PKC
inhibitor rottlerin and also show that the effects of TPA on cell
survival are mediated through its activation of PKC.
The ability of rottlerin to protect the HT22 cells from oxidative
glutamate toxicity suggested an apparent contradiction in my results
because TPA should activate PKC along with the other cPKCs and nPKCs
present in the HT22 cells. To resolve this contradiction, the effects
of TPA on the levels of the different PKC isozymes were examined at
different times after TPA addition (Fig.
7A). TPA induces the rapid and
complete loss of PKC (Fig. 7B). In contrast, the levels
of PKC decrease much more slowly, and PKC is present at a
constant level for up to 8 hr after TPA addition (Fig. 7B).
The TPA-mediated downregulation of PKC is not inhibited by PD98059
(data not shown), indicating that it occurs independently of the effect
of TPA on ERK activity. Thus, in addition to activating ERKs, TPA
treatment also leads to the downregulation of PKC whose activity,
based on the data with rottlerin, appears to contribute to oxidative
stress-induced cell death. Furthermore, the observation that the PKC
inhibitor Go6983, which inhibits PKC along
with all the other PKC isozymes expressed in the HT22 cells, does not protect the cells from oxidative stress-induced cell death and blocks
TPA-mediated protection (Fig. 6C) suggests that the
activities of multiple PKC isozymes are required for cell survival.

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Figure 7.
TPA treatment causes the rapid downregulation of
PKC . A, Immunoblot. Cells were untreated
(ct) or treated with 100 ng/ml TPA for 1-8 hr, cell
extracts were prepared, and equal amounts of protein were analyzed by
SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting with antibodies specific for each of the
indicated PKC isozymes. Similar results were obtained in three
independent experiments. B, The data shown in
A are presented graphically.
|
|
 |
DISCUSSION |
The above results demonstrate that the TPA-mediated protection of
neuronal cells from oxidative stress-induced cell death involves the
regulation of multiple kinases, including several different members of
the MAPK family (Fig. 8). Although MAPKs have been implicated in cell death in a variety of studies, the work
presented here shows for the first time that the control of these
activities is interrelated. This, therefore, may be why in studies
using dominant-negative mutants, the dynamic balance between ERK
activity on the one hand and JNK and p38 MAPK activities on the other
hand, appears to be a critical factor in determining whether nerve
cells live or die (Xia et al., 1995 ). My work also provides insight
into why studies with different PKC inhibitors in models of ischemia
and other forms of neuronal cell death have not produced consistent
results since different PKC isozymes play opposing roles in modulating
oxidative stress-induced cell death.

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Figure 8.
A model diagramming the multiple actions of TPA on
intracellular kinases that lead to protection from oxidative
stress-induced cell death. TPA treatment results in the activation of
multiple PKC isozymes. PKC activation, in turn, leads to the activation
of ERKs, which induce the activation of JNK and the inactivation of p38
MAPK. Both the activation of JNK and the inactivation of p38 MAPK are
required for protection from oxidative stress-induced cell death. TPA
treatment also leads to the rapid inactivation of PKC , which is
independent of the effect on ERK activity and also plays a role in the
protection from cell death.
|
|
Since the discovery that PKCs serve as the major intracellular
receptors for tumor-promoting phorbol esters, they have been implicated
in the regulation of cell proliferation. More recently, the role of
PKCs in regulating PCD has been investigated (for review, see Lavin et
al., 1996 ; Deacon et al., 1997 ; Mochly-Rosen and Kauvar, 1998 ). Several
studies have suggested roles for PKC , PKC , PKC , and PKC /
in the suppression of PCD (Murray and Fields, 1997 ; Gubina et al.,
1998 ; Whelan and Parker, 1998 ). The results presented here indicate
that both PKC and PKC play a role in the TPA-mediated protection
of neuronal cells from oxidative stress-induced cell death and that
they do so, at least in part, by activating ERKs and JNK and inhibiting
p38 MAPK activation.
In contrast, both PKC I and PKC have been associated with the
promotion of PCD (Deacon et al., 1997 ; Konishi et al., 1999 ). PKC is
activated during PCD via either cleavage by caspase 3 (Gschwendt, 1999 )
or an allosteric mechanism (Fujii et al., 2000 ). Furthermore,
overexpression of PKC can induce (Ghayur et al., 1996 ; Li et al.,
1999 ) or potentiate (Konishi et al., 1999 ) PCD. My results are
consistent with a role for PKC in promoting oxidative stress-induced
cell death in neuronal cells. However, because caspase 3 inhibitors do
not protect the HT22 cells from oxidative glutamate toxicity (Tan et
al., 1998b ) and no cleavage of PKC is observed after glutamate
treatment (data not shown), it is likely that the activation of PKC
by glutamate treatment is through an undefined allosteric mechanism
(Fujii et al., 2000 ).
The role of ERKs in PCD is controversial. ERK activation blocks PCD
induced by a variety of stimuli (Xia et al., 1995 ; Guvillier et al.,
1996 ; Guyton et al., 1996 ; Stadheim and Kucera, 1998 ; Wang et al.,
1998 ; Singer et al., 1999 ). However, others found that ERK activation
either plays no role in PCD (Creedon et al., 1996 ) or actually promotes
PCD (Murray et al., 1998 ; Alessandrini et al., 1999 ; Stanciu et al.,
2000 ). Two of the latter studies (Satoh et al., 2000 ; Stanciu et al.,
2000 ) also used the HT22 cells and, in contrast to the results
presented here, found that a different MEK inhibitor, U0126, protected
the cells from oxidative glutamate toxicity. However, unlike PD98059,
U0126 also inhibits p70S6K (Fukazawa and
Uehara, 2000 ). p70S6K controls the
translation of specific mRNAs (for review, see Dufner and Thomas,
1999 ), and the partial inhibition of protein synthesis protects the
HT22 cells from oxidative glutamate toxicity (Tan et al., 1998b ).
Therefore, the protective effect of U0126 may not involve its action on MEK.
As with ERKs, the role of JNK in PCD is controversial. Initial
evidence suggested that high levels of JNK activity contributed to cell
death, whereas inhibition of JNK activation was protective (Xia et al.,
1995 ). However, later studies demonstrated a protective role for JNK
activation in several different cell death paradigms (Roulston et al.,
1998 ; Sanna et al., 1998 ). One complicating factor is that the JNK
family is encoded by three different genes with alternative splicing
giving rise to 10 different isoforms (Kyriakis and Avruch, 1996 ; Cohen,
1998 ; Leppa and Bohmann, 1999 ), and different JNK isoforms are not
functionally redundant. For example, although JNK3 knock-out mice show
an increased resistance to kainic acid-induced seizures and subsequent
PCD of hippocampal neurons, mice deficient in both JNK1 and JNK2 have a
severe dysregulation of neuronal PCD during development (Kuan et al.,
1999 ). The data presented here indicate that JNK is activated by TPA
treatment of nerve cells and that this activation contributes to the
protective effects of TPA. PKC activates JNK occurs in several
cell types (Kawakami et al., 1998 ; Hara et al., 1999 ; McClellan et al.,
1999 ; Okumura et al., 1999 ) in response to a variety of stimuli.
Although the mechanism underlying this activation is unclear, in my
study, JNK activation appears to be mediated by ERKs because it is
blocked by the MEK inhibitor PD98059.
The role of p38 MAPK in PCD is less controversial. Using specific p38
MAPK inhibitors, a number of studies demonstrated that inhibition of
p38 MAPK activity promotes cell survival in both neuronal (Kawsaski et
al., 1997 ; Kummer et al., 1997 ; Horstmann et al., 1998 ; Behrens et al.,
1999 ) and non-neuronal (Mackay and Mochly-Rosen, 1998 ; Ma et al., 1999 )
cells. However, the role of p38 MAPK may be cell type- and/or
stress-specific because a few other studies have not demonstrated a
role for this kinase in PCD (Gunn-Moore and Tavare, 1998 ; Zhang et al.,
1999 ). In the HT22 cells, the role of p38 MAPK in oxidative
stress-induced cell death appears to be a negative one because
glutamate treatment leads to p38 MAPK activation, and specific
inhibitors of this kinase block cell death. Furthermore, TPA treatment
leads to the rapid inactivation of p38 MAPK via a pathway requiring ERK activity.
One strong possibility for the inactivation of p38 MAPK by TPA is that
it is through one of the members of the MKP family of dual-specificity
phosphatases. This possibility is supported by the data with the
tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor sodium orthovanadate (Fig. 4). The eight
members of the MKP family exhibit distinct cellular localizations and
substrate specificity. In the CNS, MKP-1 expression is upregulated
after kainate treatment (Boscher et al., 1998 ) and ischemia and axotomy
(Winter et al., 1998 ), and, in the latter two cases, its upregulation
was restricted to those populations of cells that survive the injury.
Furthermore, TPA treatment of cells can induce the synthesis of MKP-1
(Kwak et al., 1994 ) by a pathway that requires ERK activity (Franklin and Kraft, 1997 ). However, it is unlikely that TPA treatment of the
HT22 cells is inducing synthesis of MKP-1 because the downregulation of
p38 MAPK phosphorylation is apparent within 5 min after addition of TPA
to cells (data not shown). Alternatively, the TPA-dependent inactivation of p38 MAPK may be mediated by a protein tyrosine phosphatase that specifically acts on p38 MAPK. Recently, a role for
protein tyrosine phosphatases in the actions of PKC in T cells was
demonstrated (Tsuchida et al., 2000 ).
Glutamate directly affects the activities of p38 MAPK and ERK but alone
does not appear to alter JNK activity. Because in TPA-treated cells the
decrease in p38 MAPK activity is directly dependent on ERK activity, it
is likely that the increase in p38 MAPK activity induced by glutamate
treatment is a consequence of the inactivation of ERK activity. Thus,
the actions of TPA appear to be severalfold (Fig. 8): first, to
counteract the effects of glutamate on two MAPK family members; second,
to activate an additional family member whose activity promotes cell
survival; and third, to inactivate a specific PKC isozyme, PKC .
Although agents that induce oxidative stress do not always inactivate
ERKs (Guyton et al., 1996 ; Wang et al., 1998 ), this may be more a
reflection of the heterogeneous response of a population of cells
rather than a cell type-specific effect of these agents on ERK
activity. Thus, the cells within a population in which ERKs are
activated live, whereas those in which it is inhibited die. In
contrast, because glutamate kills 90-95% of the cells, we can focus
specifically on pathways leading to cell death.
In summary, a critical part of the protection from oxidative
stress-induced cell death mediated by protein kinase C activation is
attributable to the modulation of the activities of multiple members of
the MAPK kinase family. However, these activities do not appear to be
regulated independently by PKC, but rather their activities appear to
be interconnected. Thus, activation of ERKs by TPA leads to the
downregulation of p38 MAPK activity and the upregulation of JNK
activity. An additional effect of TPA treatment is to differentially
modulate the levels of different members of the PKC family such that a
specific isozyme that appears to promote cell death is lost, whereas
other isozymes are maintained and may contribute to the extended
activation of ERKs. These other isozymes may also have additional
survival-promoting effects that remain to be determined.
 |
FOOTNOTES |
Received Oct. 9, 2000; revised Dec. 22, 2000; accepted Jan 18, 2001.
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health Grant
NS28121. I thank Dr. David Schubert for the primary cortical neurons,
as well as helpful discussions and critical reading of this manuscript,
and Lori Huska for help in preparing the figures.
Correspondence should be addressed to Pamela Maher, Department of Cell
Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road,
La Jolla, CA 92037. E-mail: pmaher{at}scripps.edu.
 |
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