Constitutively Active Mutant of the Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Kinase MEK1 Induces Epithelial Dedifferentiation and Growth Inhibition in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney-C7 Cells

• Published in: The Journal of biological chemistry Vol. 272; no. 17; pp. 11426 - 11433
• Main Authors: Schramek, H, Feifel, E, Healy, E, Pollack, V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 25.04.1997
• Subjects: Animals; Antigens, Differentiation; Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinases - metabolism; Cell Differentiation; Cell Division; Dogs; Enzyme Inhibitors - pharmacology; Epithelial Cells; Flavonoids - pharmacology; Kidney - cytology; MAP Kinase Kinase 1; Mesoderm - physiology; Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase 1; Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase 3; Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Kinases; Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases; Mutation; Phosphorylation; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases - antagonists & inhibitors; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases - genetics; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases - metabolism; Protein-Tyrosine Kinases - antagonists & inhibitors; Protein-Tyrosine Kinases - genetics; Protein-Tyrosine Kinases - metabolism; Recombinant Fusion Proteins - metabolism; Signal Transduction; Transfection
• ISSN: 0021-9258; 1083-351X
• DOI: 10.1074/jbc.272.17.11426

Overexpression of a constitutively active mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MAPKK or MEK) induces neuronal differentiation in adrenal pheochromocytoma 12 cells but transformation in fibroblasts. In the present study, we used a constitutively active MAPK/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) kinase 1 (MEK1) mutant to investigate the function of the highly conserved MEK1-ERK2 signaling module in renal epithelial cell differentiation and proliferation. Stable expression of constitutively active MEK1 (CA-MEK1) in epithelial MDCK-C7 cells led to an increased basal and serum-stimulated ERK1 and ERK2 phosphorylation as well as ERK2 activation when compared with mock-transfected cells. In both mock-transfected and CA-MEK1-transfected MDCK-C7 cells, basal and serum-stimulated ERK1 and ERK2 phosphorylation was almost abolished by the synthetic MEK inhibitor PD098059. Increased ERK2 activation due to stable expression of CA-MEK1 in MDCK-C7 cells was associated with epithelial dedifferentiation as shown by both a dramatic alteration in cell morphology and an abolished cytokeratin expression but increased vimentin expression. In addition, we obtained a delayed and reduced serum-stimulated cell proliferation in CA-MEK1-transfected cells (4.6-fold increase in cell number/cm 2 after 5 days of serum stimulation) as compared with mock-transfected controls (12.9-fold increase in cell number/cm 2 after 5 days). This result was confirmed by flow cytometric DNA analysis showing that stable expression of CA-MEK1 decreased the proportion of MDCK-C7 cells moving from G 0 /G 1 to G 2 /M as compared with both untransfected and mock-transfected cells. Taken together, our data demonstrate an association of increased basal and serum-stimulated activity of the MEK1-ERK2 signaling module with epithelial dedifferentiation and growth inhibition in MDCK-C7 cells. Thus, the MEK1-ERK2 signaling pathway could act as a negative regulator of epithelial differentiation thereby leading to an attenuation of MDCK-C7 cell proliferation.