The haematopoietic GTPase RhoH modulates IL3 signalling through regulation of STAT activity and IL3 receptor expression.

BACKGROUND: RhoH is a constitutively active member of the family of Rho GTPases. Its expression is restricted to the haematopoietic lineage, where it serves as a positive regulator for T cell selection and mast cell function and as a negative regulator for growth-related functions in other lineages. Here, we examined the activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) proteins in response to stimulation with interleukin 3 (IL3). RESULTS: Using the murine IL3-dependent cell line BaF3 we investigated the influence of RhoH protein expression levels on IL3-mediated cellular responses. RhoH overexpressing cells showed lower sensitivity to IL3 and decreased STAT5 activation. SiRNA-mediated repression of RhoH gene expression led to an increase in proliferation and STAT5 activity which correlated with an increased number of IL3 receptor α chain molecules, also known as CD123, expressed at the cell surface. Interestingly, these findings could be reproduced using human THP-1 cells as a model system for acute myeloid leukaemia, where low RhoH levels are known to be an unfavourable prognostic marker. Overexpression of RhoH on the other hand caused an induction of STAT1 activity and western blot analysis revealed that activated STAT1 is phosphorylated on Tyr701. STAT1 is known to induce apoptosis or cell cycle arrest and we detected an upregulation of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors (CDKI) p21Cip1 and p27Kip1 in RhoH overexpressing BaF3 cells. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that RhoH functions as a negative regulator for IL3-induced signals through modulation of the JAK-STAT pathway. High levels of RhoH allow the IL3-dependent activation of STAT1 causing decreased proliferation through upregulation of p21Cip1 and p27Kip1. Low RhoH levels on the other hand led to an upregulation of IL3-dependent cell growth, STAT5 activity and an increase of CD123 surface expression, linking RhoH to a CD123/STAT5 phenotype that has been described in AML patients.

Internalization and coreceptor expression are critical for TLR2-mediated recognition of lipoteichoic acid in human peripheral blood.

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA), a ubiquitous cell wall component of Gram-positive bacteria, represents a potent immunostimulatory molecule. Because LTA of a mutant Staphylococcus aureus strain lacking lipoproteins (Deltalgt-LTA) has been described to be immunobiologically inactive despite a lack of ascertained structural differences to wild-type LTA (wt-LTA), we investigated the functional requirements for the recognition of Deltalgt-LTA by human peripheral blood cells. In this study, we demonstrate that Deltalgt-LTA-induced immune activation critically depends on the immobilization of LTA and the presence of human serum components, which, to a lesser degree, was also observed for wt-LTA. Under experimental conditions allowing LTA-mediated stimulation, we found no differences between the immunostimulatory capacity of Deltalgt-LTA and wt-LTA in human blood cells, arguing for a limited contribution of possible lipoprotein contaminants to wt-LTA-mediated immune activation. In contrast to human blood cells, TLR2-transfected human embryonic kidney 293 cells could be activated only by wt-LTA, whereas activation of these cells by Deltalgt-LTA required the additional expression of TLR6 and CD14, suggesting that activation of human embryonic kidney 293 cells expressing solely TLR2 is probably mediated by residual lipoproteins in wt-LTA. Notably, in human peripheral blood, LTA-specific IgG Abs are essential for Deltalgt-LTA-mediated immune activation and appear to induce the phagocytic uptake of Deltalgt-LTA via engagement of FcgammaRII. In this study, we have elucidated a novel mechanism of LTA-induced cytokine induction in human peripheral blood cells that involves uptake of LTA and subsequent intracellular recognition driven by TLR2, TLR6, and CD14.