title: Lipopolysaccharide induces activation of the Raf-1/MAP kinase pathway. A putative role for Raf-1 in the induction of the IL-1 beta and the TNF-alpha genes.
abstract: Bacterial LPS is a potent macrophage activator. The early steps in LPS signal transduction involve the tyrosine phosphorylation and activation of a number of kinases of the src family, and inhibition of this pathway causes a severe impairment in the production of the cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-1 beta. We find that LPS-induced macrophages activation also involves the Raf-1 kinase, a key component in mitogenic signal transduction. Treatment of BAC-1.2F5 macrophages with LPS causes phosphorylation and activation of Raf-1. This is paralleled by the stimulation of MEK-1 and MAP-kinase activity and by the phosphorylation of the transcription factor Elk-1, a nuclear target of MAP-kinase. Activation of the Raf/MAP-kinase pathway was inhibited upon pretreatment of the cells with genistein, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Raf-1 must thus lie downstream of tyrosine kinase in LPS signal transduction. However, Raf-1 is not a direct substrate of a LPS-induced tyrosine kinase, because Raf-1 immunoisolated from LPS-induced cells contains only phosphoserine. This resembles the situation after CSF-1-stimulation of macrophages, in which Raf-1 clearly transduces a signal generated by the CSF-1 receptor kinase, but is phosphorylated exclusively in serine. Phosphopeptide maps of Raf-1 immunoprecipitated from LPS- or CSF-1-treated cells are indistinguishable, suggesting that these agents activate Raf-1 by similar mechanisms. Finally, v-raf-infected BAC-1.2F5 macrophages were found to constitutively express low levels of IL-1 beta and TNF-alpha. These data argue that Raf-1 functions downstream of tyrosine kinases in LPS-mediated macrophage activation and cytokine production.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunobiology, Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Molecular Biology, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Reimann
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Büscher
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Hipskind
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krautwald
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Lohmann-Matthes
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baccarini
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D002460:Cell Line; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D007375:Interleukin-1 / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016173:Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010766:Phosphorylation; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D019908:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-raf; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D007375:Interleukin-1; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D016173:Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases; D019908:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-raf