Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:4.2.3.23 (GAS)
 957 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The gene for the RNA-dependent eIF-2 alpha protein kinase (PKR) was isolated from mouse genomic DNA and characterized. The mouse PKR gene contains 16 exons and spans about 28 kilobase pairs. Exon 1 is untranslated; the AUG translation initiation site is located early in the second exon. Exon 16 includes the UAG translation termination site. ATTAAA polyadenylylation signal, and a putative TA rather than CA 3' cleavage site. Primer extension analysis determined one major as well as multiple minor transcription initiation sites; the major site was 159 bp upstream of the translation initiation site. The complete cDNA of mouse PKR is, therefore, 2334 bp in length excluding the 3' poly(A)+ tail. The PKR gene 5' flanking region was a functional promoter in interferon-treated, transfected cells as measured with chloramphenicol acetyltransferase as the reporter gene. Sequence analysis of the 5' flanking region disclosed numerous potential binding sites for transcription factors including both an ISRE element and a GAS element involved in interferon inducibility; Ets, Myb, MyoD, and E2F sites commonly associated with growth control regulation and differentiation; and NF-kappa B-like sites as well as sites for two types of interleukin 6-activated factors, NF-IL6 and APRF, often associated with acute-phase, immune, and inflammatory response genes.
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PMID:Mechanism of interferon action: structure of the mouse PKR gene encoding the interferon-inducible RNA-dependent protein kinase. 791

Interferons (IFNs) are potent inhibitors of cell proliferation that are used for the treatment of several haematological malignancies. The mechanisms through which IFNs exert their antiproliferative effects on target cells, however, are largely unknown. Here we show that IFN-alpha, in murine Ba/F3 cells, directly interferes with the action of the essential mitogen interleukin (IL)-3. In transiently transfected Ba/F3 cells, IFN-alpha efficiently inhibited the IL-3-stimulated expression of a luciferase reporter construct, GAS-luc, that is activated through the JAK2/STAT5 pathway. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays and Northern blot experiments, however, revealed that neither the IL-3-induced DNA binding of STAT5 nor the transcription of the STAT5-dependent genes oncostatin-M, pim-1 and c-fos were suppressed by IFN-alpha, suggesting that the diminished expression of the luciferase protein was due to a direct inhibition of IL-3-stimulated protein synthesis. This hypothesis was supported by the observation that IFN-alpha, even though it had no effect on the transcription of the c-fos gene, efficiently suppressed the IL-3-dependent expression of the c-Fos protein. Furthermore, our results indicate that IFN-alpha induced an overexpression of the double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase (PKR), an enzyme that inhibits protein synthesis through the phosphorylation and inactivation of the eukaryotic initiation factor-2. Therefore, we hypothesize that IFN-alpha, in Ba/F3 cells, interrupts IL-3-dependent mitogenic signals, at least in part, through the suppression of protein synthesis and that induction of PKR activity may play a pivotal role in this process.
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PMID:Interferon-alpha inhibits proliferation of Ba/F3 cells by interfering with interleukin-3 action. 1057 32

Arsenic trioxide (As2O3) can induce clinical remission in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), including those who have relapsed after treatment with all-trans-retinoic acid (RA). In vitro studies with the APL-derived NB4 cell line showed that As2O3 exerts a dose-dependent dual effect, which induces apoptosis at 1 microM, whereas at a lower concentration of 0.1 microM, a partial differentiation of APL is observed. In non-APL cells, interferon (IFN) alpha and 1 microM As2O3 act synergistically to induce apoptosis. In this report, we show that in NB4 cells and in two RA-resistant NB4-derived cell lines, NB4-R1 and NB4-R2, IFNalpha or IFNgamma combined with 0.1 microM As2O3 lead to an increased maturation effect. Moreover, IFNgamma alone is able to differentiate RA-sensitive and -resistant cells with a higher maturation effect on NB4-R2 cells. In contrast, all these cells underwent apoptosis in the presence of the cytokine and a higher concentration of As2O3. IFNgamma boosted As2O3-induced apoptosis in APL cells as tested by TUNEL, Annexin V staining and activation of caspase 3. As2O3 differently altered IFN-induced gene products; it downregulated PML/RARalpha and PML, did not alter PKR and Stat1, and upregulated interferon regulatory family (IRF)-1. Synergism by IFNgamma and arsenic on IRF-1 expression is mediated by a composite element in the IRF-1 promoter that includes an IFNgamma-activation site (GAS) overlapped by a nonconsensus site for nuclear factor kappa B (NFkappaB). Arsenic has no effect on NFkappaB, whereas it enhances the activation of Stat1 by IFNgamma in NB4 cells leading to an increase in IRF-1 expression.
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PMID:Arsenic enhances the activation of Stat1 by interferon gamma leading to synergistic expression of IRF-1. 1466 93

PKR, the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-activated serine/threonine kinase, has been implicated as an important component of host responses to infection and various situations of cellular stress. The involvement of PKR in signal transduction and regulation of transcription suggested to us that it may play an important role in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced activation of STAT1 in rat brain immune cells. We found that LPS rapidly stimulated the phosphorylation of PKR within 5 min, followed by phosphorylation of STAT1 at 2 h in rat primary microglia and astrocyte. Using 2-aminopurine (2-AP), a pharmacological inhibitor of PKR, and PKR-specific short interfering RNA (siRNA), we demonstrated that activation of PKR was essential for LPS-induced activation of STAT1. Inhibition of PKR activity by 2-AP resulted in suppression not only of STAT1 phosphorylation, but also of nuclear factors binding activity to GAS/ISRE elements. 2-AP also significantly suppressed the downstream events of LPS-stimulated STAT1 phosphorylation, including STAT-mediated transcriptional responses and generation of nitric oxide, a hallmark of brain inflammation. Consistent with these results, transfection of PKR-specific siRNA markedly attenuated all the STAT1 dependent inflammatory signaling responses tested. We further revealed that activation of PKR by LPS led to the induction of IFN-beta through activation of NF-kappaB, triggering the phosphorylation of STAT1 in rat brain glial cells. Taken together, these findings indicate that PKR functions as an essential modulator in LPS-induced STAT inflammatory signaling events, and provides new insight into endotoxin-induced CNS diseases following infection.
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PMID:Double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase is required for the LPS-induced activation of STAT1 inflammatory signaling in rat brain glial cells. 1563 Jul 3