Skatole-induced p38 and JNK activation coordinately upregulates, whereas AhR activation partially attenuates TNFα expression in intestinal epithelial cells.

Increased tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) expression in intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) plays a major role in the development and progression of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colorectal cancer (CRC). The present study aimed to clarify the relationship between TNFα and skatole, a tryptophan-derived gut microbiota metabolite. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) antagonist CH223191 promoted, whereas the p38 inhibitor SB203580 suppressed the increase in TNFα mRNA and protein expression induced by skatole in intestinal epithelial Caco-2 cells. The c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibitor SP600125 repressed only the increased TNFα protein expression, whereas the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway inhibitor U0126 did not affect increased TNFα expression at any level. A neutralizing antibody against TNFα partially inhibited skatole-induced cell death. Overall, these results suggested that TNFα expression is increased by the concerted actions of skatole-activated p38 and JNK, and that TNFα exerts autocrine/paracrine actions on IECs despite partial suppression by activated AhR. Therefore, skatole might play an important role in the development and progression of IBD and CRC via increased TNFα expression.

Activation of the TLR4-JNK but not the TLR4-ERK pathway induced by indole-3-acetic acid exerts anti-proliferative effects on Caco-2 cells.

We previously found that indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) produced from tryptophan by gut microbiota decreases the expression of tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), which is implicated in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). The present study aimed to determine IAA involvement in the proliferation of CRC-derived Caco-2 cells. Cell proliferation was suppressed by IAA, whereas IAA-induced aryl hydrocarbon receptor activation had no impact. IAA activated extracellular signal-related (ERK) and c-Jun N-terminal (JNK) kinases, but not p38. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) may be required to activate ERK and JNK, but only the TLR4-JNK pathway might elicit the anti-proliferative effects of IAA. Thus, IAA may be a ligand for TLR4 that contributes to inhibiting CRC cell proliferation by activating TLR4-mediated JNK. Because IAA did not induce cytotoxicity, inhibiting cell cycle progression might affect the anti-proliferative capacity of IAA. Therefore, colonic IAA accumulation might help to prevent CRC development and progression.

Super-long single-molecule tracking reveals dynamic-anchorage-induced integrin function.

Single-fluorescent-molecule imaging tracking (SMT) is becoming an important tool to study living cells. However, photobleaching and photoblinking (hereafter referred to as photobleaching/photoblinking) of the probe molecules strongly hamper SMT studies of living cells, making it difficult to observe in vivo molecular events and to evaluate their lifetimes (e.g., off rates). The methods used to suppress photobleaching/photoblinking in vitro are difficult to apply to living cells because of their toxicities. Here using 13 organic fluorophores we found that, by combining low concentrations of dissolved oxygen with a reducing-plus-oxidizing system, photobleaching/photoblinking could be strongly suppressed with only minor effects on cells, which enabled SMT for as long as 12,000 frames (~7 min at video rate, as compared to the general 10-s-order durations) with ~22-nm single-molecule localization precisions. SMT of integrins revealed that they underwent temporary (<80-s) immobilizations within the focal adhesion region, which were responsible for the mechanical linkage of the actin cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix.