Originally published as JHC exPRESS on May 27, 2005. doi:10.1369/jhc.4A6592.2005
Volume 53 (9): 1121-1129, 2005 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc. Activation of PAR4 Induces a Distinct Actin Fiber Formation via p38 MAPK in Human Lung Endothelial Cells
Department of Molecular Pathology, Nippon Medical School, Graduate School of Medicine, Institute of Gerontology, Kanagawa, Japan Correspondence to: Oichi Kawanami, MD, PhD, Department of Molecular Pathology, Nippon Medical School, Graduate School of Medicine, Institute of Gerontology, 1-396 Kosugi-cho, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. E-mail: kawanami{at}nms.ac.jp
Protease-activated receptors (PARs) are multifunctional G proteincoupled receptors. Among the four existing PARs, PAR4 is preferentially expressed in the human lung tissue. However, the function of PAR4 has not been defined in the lung endothelial cells. Because PAR1-mediated cellular effects are deeply related to the morphological changes, we focused on the actin fiber and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling involved in actin polymerization to elucidate the role of PAR4. RT-PCR and Western blot analyses identified PAR4 expression in human pulmonary artery endothelial cells and in human microvascular endothelial cells from lung. We then examined the changes in actin fibers in endothelial cells treated with PAR4-activating peptide. PAR1-activating peptide was used for comparison. Activation of PAR4 and PAR1 by their corresponding peptides induced actin fiber formation; however, the actin filaments were broadly bundled in PAR4 as compared with the ringlike actin filaments in PAR1 activation. Correspondingly, the magnitude of p38 MAPK phosphorylation was different between cells treated with PAR4 and PAR1, with PAR4-activating peptide showing a significantly higher sensitivity to p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580. Taken together, these results demonstrate that activation of PAR4 results in the formation of actin fiber distinct from that by PAR1 activation, suggesting PAR4 may play specific roles in the lung endothelial cells. (J Histochem Cytochem 53:11211129, 2005)
Key Words: pulmonary endothelial cells G proteincoupled receptors protease-activated receptor thrombin actin p38 MAPK
PROTEASE-ACTIVATED RECEPTORS (PARS) are cell surface receptors that mediate signals to G proteins (Vu et al. 1991
Stimulation of PARs is known to induce a variety of cellular effects in many types of cells. In the endothelial cells, for example, PAR1 upregulated cyclooxygenase-2 expression (Houliston et al. 2002
Previously, we have shown the preferential expression of PAR4 in human lung vascular endothelial cells in vitro (Fujiwara et al. 2004 In this study, we investigated whether PAR4 and PAR1 play different roles in actin reorganization in human pulmonary artery endothelial cells (HPAEC) and human microvascular endothelial cells from lung (HMVEC-L), and whether the actin formation by elicitation of PAR4 or PAR1 is p38 MAPK-dependent in these human lung endothelial cells. Furthermore, we examined if PAR4-induced actin fibers display different morphology from the PAR1-induced actin fibers. The results indicated that the functional role of PAR4 in lung endothelial cells involved actin fiber formation and that the resulting morphology of the fibers differed from that derived from PAR1 activation through a distinct signaling pathway.
Reagents Human -thrombin was purchased from Sigma (St Louis, MO). The anti- PAR4 polyclonal goat antibody was from Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA). The anti-p38 MAPK, anti-phospho-p38 MAPK, anti-Hsp27, and anti-phospho-Hsp27 antibodies were from Cell Signaling Technology Inc. (Beverly, MA). PAR1-activating peptide, SFLLRN-0H, was from BACHEM (Budendorf, Switzerland) and PAR4-activating peptide, GYPGQV-NH2, and its scrambled peptide, YGPGQV-NH2, were from BioGate Co., Ltd (Gifu, Japan). All the peptides used in the experiments were HPLC grade with >95% purity. Aminopeptidase inhibitor, amastatin, was from Peptide Institute, Inc. (Osaka, Japan).
Endothelial Cell Culture and Tissue Sections Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections from human lung and lymph node were obtained from the surgical pathology division.
Immunohistochemistry
Semiquantitative RT-PCR
Western Blot Analysis for PAR4 and p38 MAPK Activations
Actin Fluorescence Staining
p38 MAPK Inhibition
Expression of PAR4 in Human Lung Tissue To assess in vivo status of PAR4 expression in human lung, immunohistochemical staining for PAR4 was applied on lung tissues. Distinct PAR4 expression was observed in vascular endothelial cells, type II alveolar epithelial cells, and some inflammatory cells. The endothelial cells in microvessels (Figure 1A; arrow) showed a strong reaction for PAR4 similar to that in the large vessels (Figure 1B; arrow). On the other hand, PAR4 expression was not detected in lymph node tissue stained in parallel (Figure 1C), as was previously shown by Northern blot analysis (Xu et al. 1998
Expression of PAR4 in HPAEC and HMVEC-L By a semiquantitative RT-PCR, both HPAEC and HMVEC-L expressed PAR4 mRNA (Figure 2A), and the expression level in HMVEC-L (Figure 2A, Lane 2) showed 1.97 ± 0.01fold increase over the expression level in HPAEC (Figure 2A, Lane 1).
Western blot analysis revealed the expression of PAR4 in both HPAEC and HMVEC-L, with more abundance in HMVEC-L (Figure 2B, Lane 2). The specificity of Western blot analysis was confirmed by detection of a weak PAR4 band in human aortic endothelial cell corresponding to its mRNA level by RT-PCR (Fujiwara et al. 2004
PAR4 Activation and Induction of Actin Fiber Formation
Exposure of GYPGQV (500 µM) for 15 min induced actin bundles at the cell boundary in HPAEC (Figure 4A) and in HMVEC-L (Figure 4B). In HPAEC, GYPGQV treatment showed increase in the thickness of actin bundles. However, the fluorescence intensity in HPAEC was not as dense as that of the 30-min treatment (see Figure 3). In HMVEC-L, exposure of GYPGQV induced dense and thickened actin fibers with strong Alexa 488phalloidin actin staining (Figure 4B; GYPGQV, lower panels). YGPGQV (500 µM), a negative control scrambled peptide, did not alter the actin architecture in either HPAEC (Figure 4A; YGPGQV) or HMVEC-L (Figure 4B; YGPGQV), and showed similar cell cytoskeletons as in the control cells.
Change in actin architecture was also recognized in the lung endothelial cells when the cells were treated with -thrombin or PAR1-activating agent, SFLLRN, for 15 min (Figure 5). We used effective dose of -thrombin (2 U/ml) or PAR1-activating peptide (100 µM) based on the results of previous studies (Vouret-Craviari et al. 1998 -thrombin (2 U/ml)-treated cells. However, these cells showed different morphology from that of the cells activated with PAR4. The PAR1-activated cells were morphologically more contracted as evidenced by ringlike condensation of actin fibers that was different from actin polymerization localized at the cell boundary induced by PAR4 activation.
Involvement of p38 MAPK Phosphorylation During PAR4 Activation Involvement of p38 MAPK, one of the MAPK members that regulate actin fiber formation, was examined in HPAEC and HMVEC-L. In HPAEC, 1.94 ± 0.11fold increase in pp38 MAPK was detected in GYPGQV-treated cells (Figure 6A, Lane 2) than in the control cells (Figure 6A, Lane 1). Negative control peptide, YGPGQV, had no effect on p38 MAPK phosphorylation (Figure 6A, Lane 3). The SFLLRN-treated cells responded most strongly and showed 5.93 ± 0.74fold increase in pp38 MAPK level (Figure 6A, Lane 4). Similar results were also observed in HMVEC-L (Figure 6B). Here, the phosphorylated p38 MAPK level in GYPGQV-treated cells (Figure 6B, Lane 2) was 2.45 ± 0.68fold more than control (Figure 6B, Lane 1) or YGPGQV (Figure 6B, Lane 3)-treated cells. And SFLLRN increased pp38 MAPK level to 12.54 ± 2.81fold (Figure 6B, Lane 4). Changes in p38 MAPK phosphorylated state were most apparent at 15 min and 5 min after the treatments for HPAEC and HMVEC-L, respectively. The expression level of total p38 MAPK was similar in both HPAEC and HMVEC-L (Figure 6, lower panel).
Suppression of PAR4-induced Actin Fiber Formation by p38 MAPK Inhibitor SB203580 To validate the role of p38 MAPK in PAR4-induced actin fiber formation, p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580, was used. At 2.5 µM of concentration, SB203580 suppressed GYPGQV (PAR4 activator)-induced actin fibers in HPAEC as evidenced by the decreased thickness in longitudinal axis (Figure 7A). In contrast, SB203580 could not alter actin fibers in SFLLRN (PAR1 activator) or -thrombintreated cells at the same concentration. In the control cells, no significant effect on actin fibers was detected under the presence of SB203580.
Activity of p38 MAPK under the presence of SB203580 was also confirmed by p38 MAPK downstream target, Hsp27 (Figure 7B). In GYPGQV-treated cells, the amount of phosphorylated Hsp27 (pHsp27) was significantly decreased under the presence of SB203580 at 2.5 µM. Similarly, 2.5 µM of SB203580 suppressed the phosphorylation state of Hsp27 in control and SFLLRN-treated cells, indicating the abolishment of MAPK activity of p38 MAPK in SB203580-treated cells. Also, the expression of Hsp27 was lower in GYPGQV-treated cells (both with and without SB203580) than control and SFLLRN-treated cells.
In the present study, the expression of PAR4 and its functional roles in the lung endothelial cells were investigated. We first demonstrated PAR4 expression in the lung vascular endothelial cells with a heterogeneous expression pattern between large and small vessels. These results indicated the importance of PAR4 in endothelial cells of lung vessels, especially microvessels. Second, we demonstrated the PAR4 function that induced a distinct actin fiber formation in HPAEC and HMVEC-L. These newly formed long actin filaments with a broadened dense localization along the cell boundary were morphologically different from that of PAR1-induced cortical rings of polymerized actin. Furthermore, PAR4- and PAR1-activated cells showed a difference in terms of p38 MAPK participation, as observed by p38 MAPK inhibition experiments using SB203580. These results suggested unique capabilities of PAR4 that was not provided by PAR1, and indicated important actin-related functions of PAR4 in the lung vascular endothelial cells.
As determined by immunohistochemistry, PAR4 was strongly expressed in the endothelial cells of human lung tissue, whereas lymph node tissue was unreactive. This is consistent with the previous results showing a high expression of PAR4 mRNA in human lung tissues and lack of detections in lymph node tissue (Xu et al. 1998
The differences between PAR4 and PAR1 have been reported from diverse viewpoints. At the genome structure level, human PAR4 was shown to be localized at 19p12, whereas other human PARs, PAR13, formed a gene cluster at 5q13 (Kahn et al. 1998a
The morphological difference between PAR4 and PAR1 in rearranged actin fibers points out distinct activation kinetics of PAR4 from PAR1 in endothelial cells. Consistent with our findings, different kinetics of PAR4 were reported by others (Kahn et al. 1998b
The observation that PAR4 induced actin fiber formation was highly sensitive to p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580, raised a hypothesis that p38 MAPK could be the principal factor that controls the diverse PAR actin traffic pathways. In cardiomyocytes, PAR4 was shown to activate p38 MAPK via Src, an important upstream signaling factor for actin polymerization, whereas PAR1 was unable to activate Src, indicating the involvement of a different signal activation cascade in p38 MAPK (Sabri et al. 2003
Similar forms of PAR4-induced actin fibers were reported under such stimuli as mechanical stretch (Birukov et al. 2003
The importance of PAR4 in lung endothelial cells could be hypothesized from the fact that PAR4 expression is upregulated in response to inflammatory stimuli, tumor necrosis factor- In conclusion, we have demonstrated the expression of PAR4 in lung vascular endothelial cells and its functional effect on actin fiber formation. The morphology of PAR4-induced actin fiber was distinct from that of PAR1-induced actin fiber. The PAR4-induced actin fiber formation was highly p38 MAPK-dependent, whereas the inhibition of p38 MAPK had little effect on PAR1-induced actin formation. These results indicated that PAR4 might provide unique capabilities that could not be contributed by PAR1. Further attempts will be required to elucidate the physiological and pathological role of PAR4 in the lung vascular endothelial cells.
Supported by grants from the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport of Japan and, in part, by a Maruyama Memorial Research Grant, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan. We wish to acknowledge Seiko Egawa, Department of Molecular Pathology, Institute of Gerontology, Nippon Medical School, for her assistance with laboratory analyses.
Received for publication December 2, 2004; accepted March 23, 2005
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