Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Molecular and Cellular Biology, May 2009, p. 2594-2608, Vol. 29, No. 10
0270-7306/09/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/MCB.01396-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
,
Laboratorio Nazionale Consorzio Interuniversitario Biotecnologie, AREA Science Park, Padriciano 99, 34012 Trieste, Italy,1 Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biomediche, Universita degli Studi di Udine, p.le Kolbe 4, 33100 Udine, Italy2
Received 5 September 2008/ Returned for modification 20 November 2008/ Accepted 6 March 2009
Recently, autophagy has emerged as a critical process in the control of T-cell homeostasis. Given the pivotal role of NF-
B in the signaling events of T cells, we have analyzed and unveiled a conserved NF-
B binding site in the promoter of the murine and human BECN1 autophagic gene (Atg6). Accordingly, we demonstrate that the NF-
B family member p65/RelA upregulates BECN1 mRNA and protein levels in different cellular systems. Moreover, p65-mediated upregulation of BECN1 is coupled to increased autophagy. The newly identified
B site in the BECN1 promoter specifically interacts with p65 both in vitro and in living Jurkat cells upon phorbol myristate acetate (PMA)-ionomycin stimulation, where p65 induction is coupled to BECN1 upregulation and autophagy induction. Finally, anti-CD3- and PMA-ionomycin-mediated activation of T-cell receptor signaling in peripheral T cells from lymph nodes of healthy mice results in an upregulation of BECN1 expression that can be blocked by the NF-
B inhibitor BAY 11-7082. Altogether, these data suggest that autophagy could represent a novel route modulated by p65 to regulate cell survival and control T-cell homeostasis.
Published ahead of print on 16 March 2009.
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»