Yp. Hsueh et Mz. Lai, C-JUN N-TERMINAL KINASE BUT NOT MITOGEN-ACTIVATED PROTEIN-KINASE IS SENSITIVE TO CAMP INHIBITION IN T-LYMPHOCYTES, The Journal of biological chemistry, 270(30), 1995, pp. 18094-18098
The molecular mechanism underlying the cAMP inhibition of nuclear acti
vation events in T lymphocytes is unknown. Recently, the activation of
fibroblasts and muscle cells are shown to be antagonized by cAMP thro
ugh the inhibition of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases signalin
g pathway. Whether a similar antagonism may account for the late inhib
itory effect of cAMP in T cell was examined. Surprisingly, extracellul
ar signal regulated kinase 2 (ERK2) activation was resistant to cAMP i
nhibition in all the T lymphocytes tested. Different isoforms (ERK1, E
RK2, and ERK3) of MAP kinase were poorly inhibited by cAMP. High conce
ntration of cAMP also only weakly antagonized Raf-1 in T cells. The re
sistance of ERK and Raf-1 to cAMP clearly distinguishes T cells from f
ibroblasts. In contrast, another MAP kinase homologue c-Jun N-terminal
kinase (JNK) was inhibited by cAMP in good correlation with that of I
L-2 suppression. Moreover, JNK was antagonized by a delayed kinetics w
hich is characteristic of cAMP inhibition. Despite that both ERK and J
NK are essential for T cell activation, selective inhibition by cAMP f
urther supports the specific role of JNK in T cell activation.