PACAP and TNF regulate discrete population of genes in bovine chromaffin cells

The bovine chromaffin cell (BCC) is a unique modela highly homogeneous and accessible neuroendocrine cellin which to study gene regulation through first messenger-initiated signaling pathways that are specific to post-mitotic cells. BCCs were treated with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) or pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP), two critical regulators of neural cell transcriptional programming during inflammation that act on TNFR2 and PAC1 receptors, respectively, in post-mitotic neuroendocrine cells. Transcripts which were significantly up regulated by either or both first messenger were identified from microarray analysis using two bovine oligonucleotide arrays (Affymetrix and Agilent) followed by statistical analysis with Partek Genomic suite. Microarray data were combined from the two arrays using qRT-PCR sampling validation, and the first-messenger transcriptome derived from TNF and PACAP signaling were compared. More than 90 percent of the genes up regulated either by TNF or PACAP were specific to a single first messenger. BioBase suite, DIRE and Opossum were used to identify common promoter/enhancer response elements that control the expression of TNF- or PACAP-stimulated genes. Bioinformatic analysis revealed that distinct groups of transcription factors control the expression of genes up regulated by either TNF or PACAP . Most of the genes up regulated by TNF contained response elements for members of the Rel transcription factor family, suggesting TNF-TNFR2 signaling mainly through the NF-kB signaling pathway. On the other hand, the PACAP regulated genes showed no enrichment for any single response element, containing instead response elements for combinations of transcription factors allowing activation through multiple signaling pathways, including cAMP, calcium and ERK, in neuroendocrine cells. Pharmacological strategies for mimicking neuroprotection by either PACAP or TNF in the context of CNS injury or degeneration in disease might focus on individual downstream gene activation pathways to achieve greater specificity in vivo.

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Ait-Ali D, Samal B, Mustafa T, Eiden LE