ER stress and neuroinflammation: connecting the unfolded protein response to JAK/STAT signaling (P5196)

Neuroinflammation and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress are associated with many neurological diseases. ER stress is brought on by misfolded proteins. In turn, cells respond with activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR). The UPR is a highly conserved pathway that transmits both adaptive and apoptotic signals to restore homeostasis or eliminate the irreparably damaged cell. Recent evidence indicates that ER stress and inflammation are linked. In this study, we have examined the interaction between ER stress and JAK/STAT-dependent inflammation in astrocytes. The JAK/STAT pathway mediates the biological actions of many cytokines and growth factors. We have found that ER stress leads to the activation of STAT3 in a JAK1-dependent fashion. ER stress-induced activation of the JAK1/STAT3 axis leads to expression of IL-6 and several chemokines. The activation of STAT3 signaling is dependent on the protein kinase PERK, a central component of the UPR. Knockdown of PERK abrogates ER stress-induced activation of STAT3 and overexpression of PERK is sufficient to activate STAT3. Additionally, ER stressed astrocytes, via paracrine signaling, can stimulate activation of microglia leading to production of oncostatin M (OSM). OSM can then synergize with ER stress in astrocytes to drive inflammation. Together, this work describes a new PERK-JAK1-STAT3 signaling pathway that may elicit a feed-forward inflammatory loop involving astrocytes and microglia to drive neuroinflammation.

XIAP associates with GSK3 and inhibits the promotion of intrinsic apoptotic signaling by GSK3

This study examined if there are interactions between two key proteins that oppositely regulate intrinsic apoptosis, X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP), a key suppressor of apoptosis that binds to inhibit active caspases, and glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3), which promotes intrinsic apoptosis. Immunoprecipitation of GSK3beta revealed that XIAP associates with GSK3beta, as do two other members of the IAP family, cIAP-1, and cIAP-2. Cell fractionation revealed that XIAP is predominantly cytosolic, cIAP-1 is predominantly nuclear and nearly all of the nuclear cIAP-1 and cIAP-2 are associated with GSK3. Expression of individual domains of XIAP demonstrated that the RING domain of XIAP associates with GSK3. Inhibition of GSK3 did not alter the binding of XIAP to active caspase-9 or caspase-3 after stimulation of apoptosis with staurosporine. However, inhibition of GSK3 reduced apoptosis and apoptosome formation, including the recruitments of caspase-9 and XIAP to Apaf-1, in response to staurosporine treatment. Cell free measurements of apoptosome-induced caspase-3 activation demonstrated that GSK3 acts upstream of the apoptosome to facilitate intrinsic apoptotic signaling. This facilitation was blocked by overexpression of XIAP. These findings indicate that the RING domain of XIAP (and probably cIAP-1 and cIAP-2) associates with GSK3, GSK3 acts upstream of the apoptosome to promote intrinsic apoptosis, and the association between XIAP and GSK3 may block the pro-apoptotic function of GSK3.