The recruitment of leukocytes from the blood compartment represents one of the characteristic elements of the inflammatory process (1). Locally produced chemotactic agents are believed to play a crucial role in the activation of cells during the multistep process of leukocyte accumulation in tissues (2, 3).
In the past few years a new superfamily of chemotactic cytokines, named chemokines, has been described. The hallmark of this family are four conserved cysteine residues (4–7). According to the relative position of the first two cysteines it is possible to distinguish two main families: the C-X-C (or
) chemokines, which are primarily active on neutrophils, but show some action on T lymphocytes (4–7); and the C–C (or β) chemokines that exert their action on multiple leukocytes populations, including monocytes, basophils, eosinophils, T lymphocytes, NK and dendritic cells (4–10). Recently, a third type of protein (the C or
chemokines) was described, which is active on T lymphocytes and NK cells. This protein is characterized by the absence of the first and third cysteines, but shows overall sequence identity with C–C chemokines (11, 12).
Chemokines, as well as classical chemotactic agonists, such as formylated peptides (of which FMLP is the prototype) and C5a, bind to and activate a family of rhodopsin-like GTP-binding protein-coupled seven-transmembrane domain receptors (13–15). Five receptors for C–C chemokines, now named CCR1 through 5, have been identified and cloned (14–17). In addition to recognizing chemokines, usually with some degree of promiscuity, C–C chemokine receptors act as coreceptors for primate lentiviruses such as HIV-1, HIV-2, and SIV (18–22). In particular CCR5 is a major determinant of the interaction of HIV-1 with mononuclear phagocytes (17–22).
MCP-1 is a prototypic C–C chemokine active on mononuclear phagocytes, basophils, T cells and NK cells (4, 8, 10). It is produced by a variety of cell types, including endothelial cells and cells of the monocyte-macrophage lineage, in response to diverse inflammatory signals, typically IL-1, TNF-
, and bacterial LPS. MCP-1 interacts with CCR2, of which two isoforms have been cloned and termed A and B (23). In monocytes and NK cells CCR2 is expressed predominantly as B isoform, with vanishingly low levels of A transcripts (23a). In addition to MCP-1, CCR2 recognizes MCP-3 (24–26). Although the regulation of chemokine production has been extensively investigated, little is known as to whether microenvironmental signals may affect the chemokine system by modulating receptor expression (27, 28). This lack of information, and previous observations demonstrating that LPS modulates the in vitro replication as well as the establishment of productive HIV-1 infection in cultured macrophages (29–31), prompted us to investigate the possible effect of LPS on the expression of C–C chemokine receptors. Here, we report that LPS rapidly downregulates CCR2 and, to a lesser extent, CCR1 and CCR5 expression in monocytes by acting on mRNA stability.
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Materials and Methods
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Cells.
Human monocytes were separated from peripheral blood of human healthy donors by Percoll gradient centrifugation (32). Monocytes (
98% pure as assessed by morphology) were resuspended at 107/ml in RPMI 1640 supplemented with 10% of fetal bovine serum, 2 mM glutamine and antibiotics. All reagents contained less than 0.125 EU/ml of endotoxin as checked by Limulus Amebocyte Lysate assay (Microbiological Associates, Walkerville, MD).
Cytokines and Reagents.
Human recombinant IL-1β was a gift of Dr. Boraschi (Dompè, L'Aquila, Italy); TNF
, from BASF/Knoll (Ludwighafen, Germany); IL-2, from Eurocetus (Milan, Italy); LPS (E. coli 055:B5) from Difco (Detroit, MI); Actinomycin D (ActD) from Sigma Chem. Co. (St. Louis, MO); MCP-1, from PeproTech Inc. (Rocky Hill, NC); inactivated Streptococci (OK432) from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan); Candida Albicans from American Type Culture Collection (Rockville, MD); Glucan from Dr. N.R. Di Luzio (Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA); P. Acnes from Wellcome Biotecnology Ltd. (Beckenham, UK).
Migration Assay.
Cell migration was evaluated using a chemotaxis microchamber technique (33) as previously described (32). 27 µl of chemoattractant solution or control medium (RPMI 1640 with 1% FCS) were added to the lower wells of a chemotaxis chamber (Neuroprobe, Pleasanton, CA). A polycarbonate filter (5-µm pore size; Neuroprobe) was layered onto the wells, covered with a silicon gasket and with the top plate. 50 µl of cell suspension (1.5 x 106/ml monocytes in PBMC) were seeded in the upper chamber. The chamber was incubated at 37°C in air with 5% CO2 for 90 min. At the end of the incubation, filters were removed, stained with Diff-Quik (Baxter s.p.a., Rome, Italy) and five high power oil-immersion fields were counted.
Receptor Binding Assays.
Competition for the binding of [125I] MCP-1 (specific activity 2,200 Ci/mmol; Du Pont de Nemours, Bad Homburg, Germany) to Percoll-purified human monocytes was carried out as described previously (26). Monocytes (1 x 107/ml) in binding medium (RPMI 1640 with 10 mg/ml bovine serum albumin; Sigma, Milan, Italy) were incubated with 1 nM of labeled cytokine in the presence of different concentrations of unlabeled cytokine at 4°C for 2 h. At the end of the incubation, cells were pelleted through a cushion of silicon oil by micro-centrifugation. The radioactivity present in the tip of the tubes and in the supernatants was evaluated by using a gamma counter. IC50 values for the different ligands were calculated using "ALLFIT" program as previously described (26).
Northern Blot Analysis.
Total RNA was isolated by the guanidium isothiocyanate method as previously described (34). 15 µg of total RNA from each sample were electrophoresed under denaturing conditions, blotted onto Nytran membranes (Schleicher & Schuell Inc., Keene, NH), and cross-linked by UV irradiation. cDNAs were labeled by random priming and
-[32P]dCTP. CCR2B cDNA was obtained by PCR amplification of the reported sequence (23, 35). CCR1 and CCR5 cDNAs were obtained as previously described (16). The IL-8RB (CXCR2) cDNA clone (27) was kindly donated by Dr. Ji Ming Wang (National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD).
Nuclear Run-off Experiments.
Nuclear run-off experiments were performed essentially as described (34). Nuclei were isolated after 4 h of stimulation. Then 60 µl of 5x run-off buffer (25 mM TrisHCl, pH 8, 12.5 mM MgCl2, 750 mM KCl, and 1.25 mM each of ATP, CTP, and GTP), 2 µl of RNase inihibitors 1 U/µl (Perkin Elmer Cetus), 200 µCi of
-[32P]UTP 3,000 Ci/mmol (Amersham) were added to 220 µl of nuclei suspension and incubated at 30°C for 30 min. Elongated transcripts were then isolated using the guanidine/cesium procedure,with 50 µg of yeast tRNA added as carrier. The RNA pellet was resuspended in 180 µl of ice-cold TNE (NaCl 100 mM, 10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8, 1 mM EDTA, pH 8) and denaturated adding 20 µl of 2N NaOH on ice for 10 min. The solution was neutralized by the addition of 200 µl of 0.48 M Hepes. RNA was precipitated by adding 880 µl of ethanol; the pellet was resuspended in 100 µl of H2O and radioactivity checked with β-counter. The RNA solution was denaturated at 65°C for 5 min and hybridized at 42°C for 48 h to 5 µg of denatured DNA immobilized on nitrocellulose filters in a few milliliters of hybridization solution (200 mM NaHPO4, pH 7.2, 1mM EDTA, pH 8, SDS 7%; deionized formamide 45%; E. coli tRNA 250 mg/ml). In a given experiment, each filter was hybridized with the same number of cpm. Filters were then washed one or two times at 37°C for 20–30 min in 40 mM NaHPO4-SDS 1% and exposed for autoradiography.
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Results
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Inhibition of CCR2 mRNA Expression by LPS.
Human monocytes express high levels of CCR1, CCR2, and CCR5 transcripts (Fig. 1). CCR3 and 4 were undetectable by Northern analysis under these conditions (not shown). Using either a CCR2A or a CCR2B cDNA–specific probes, we detected a single 3.4-kb transcript, as previously reported (23, 23a). As shown in Fig. 1, LPS induced a dosedependent inhibition of the steady state level of CCR2 mRNA after 4 h, with a dramatic inhibition already at 1 ng/ml (Fig. 1 A) and virtually complete suppression at increasing concentrations, 10 and 100 ng/ml. Removal of the LPS after 4 h resulted in a gradual and complete restoration of the CCR2 mRNA level in 24 h (data not shown). Similar results were obtained by using the CCR2A cDNA– specific probe (data not shown). Likewise, but to a lesser extent, a significant LPS-dependent reduction of the CCR1 (Fig. 1 B) and CCR5 (C) mRNA levels was observed. In contrast, the mRNA level of CXCR2 was unaffected (Fig. 1 D).
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