Abstract

Several primary murine and human B lymphomas and cell lines were found to constitutively express high levels of the activated form of c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), a member of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase family. Proliferation of murine B lymphomas CH31, CH12.Lx, BKS-2, and WEHI-231 and the human B lymphomas BJAB, RAMOS, RAJI, OCI-Ly7, and OCI-Ly10 was strongly inhibited by SP600125, an anthrapyrazolone inhibitor of JNK, in a dose-dependent manner. The lymphoma cells underwent apoptosis and arrested at the G2/M phase of cell cycle. Furthermore, JNK-specific small interfering RNA (siRNA) inhibited the growth of both murine and human B lymphomas. Thus in the B-lymphoma model, JNK appears to have a unique prosurvival role. Survival signals provided by CD40 and interleukin-10 (IL-10) together reversed the growth inhibition induced by the JNK inhibitor. c-Myc protein levels were reduced in the presence of both SP600125 and JNK-specific siRNA, and CD40 ligation restored c-Myc levels. Moreover, Bcl-xL rescued WEHI-231 cells from apoptosis induced by the JNK inhibitor. The JNK inhibitor also reduced levels of early growth response gene-1 (Egr-1) protein, and overexpressing Egr-1 partially rescued lymphoma cells from apoptosis. Thus, JNK may act via c-Myc and Egr-1, which were shown to be important for B-lymphoma survival and growth.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-15-2005

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Blood, v. 106, no. 4, p. 1382-1391.

This research was originally published in Blood. Murali Gururajan, Roger Chui, Anbu K. Karuppannan, Jiyuan Ke, C. Darrell Jennings and Subbarao Bondada. c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) is required for survival and proliferation of B-lymphoma cells. Blood. 2005;106:1382-1391. © 2005 the American Society of Hematology.

The copyright holder has granted the permission for posting the article here.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2004-10-3819

Funding Information

Supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants AI 21490, AG 05731, and CA 92372 to S. B.

The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. Therefore, and solely to indicate this fact, this article is hereby marked ‘‘advertisement’’ in accordance with 18 U.S.C. section 1734.

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