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Doxorubicin induces the persistent activation of intracellular transglutaminase 2 that protects from cell death

Molecules and Cells volume 33, pages 235–241 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

The activation of transglutaminase 2 (TG2), an enzyme that catalyzes post-translational modifications of proteins, has been implicated in apoptosis, cell adhesion and inflammatory responses. We previously reported that intracellular TG2 is activated under oxidative stress conditions, such as ultraviolet irradiation, ischemia-reperfusion, and hypoxia. In this study, we examined the effect of genotoxic stress on the intracellular activity of TG2 using doxorubicin which generates reactive oxygen species that lead to double-strand breakage of DNA. We demonstrated that doxorubicin elicits the persistent activation of TG2. Doxorubicin-induced TG2 activity was suppressed by treatment with caffeine at the early phase, N-acetylcysteine at the mid-phase, and EGTA at the late phase. However, treatment with a blocking antibody against TGFβ or toll-like receptor 2 showed no effect on TG2 activity, indicating that at least three different signaling pathways may be involved in the process of TG2 activation. In addition, using MEF cells defective for TG2 and cells overexpressing an activesite mutant of TG2, we revealed that doxorubicin-induced cell death is inversely correlated with TG2 activity. Our findings indicate that the persistent activation of TG2 by doxorubicin contributes to cell survival, suggesting that the mechanism-based inhibition of TG2 may be a novel strategy to prevent drug-resistance in doxorubicin treatment.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, 110-799, Korea

    Sung-Yup Cho, Eui Man Jeong, Jin-Haeng Lee, Hyo-Jun Kim, Jisun Lim, Chai-Wan Kim & In-Gyu Kim

  2. Department of Medicine, Graduate School, University of Ulsan, Seoul, 138-736, Korea

    Dong-Myung Shin

  3. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, 110-799, Korea

    Ju-Hong Jeon

  4. Research Institute of National Cancer Center, Goyang, 410-769, Korea

    Kyungho Choi

Authors
  1. Sung-Yup Cho
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  2. Eui Man Jeong
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  3. Jin-Haeng Lee
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  4. Hyo-Jun Kim
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  5. Jisun Lim
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  6. Chai-Wan Kim
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  7. Dong-Myung Shin
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  8. Ju-Hong Jeon
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  9. Kyungho Choi
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  10. In-Gyu Kim
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Correspondence to In-Gyu Kim.

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Cho, SY., Jeong, E.M., Lee, JH. et al. Doxorubicin induces the persistent activation of intracellular transglutaminase 2 that protects from cell death. Mol Cells 33, 235–241 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10059-012-2201-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10059-012-2201-9

Keywords

  • activation
  • doxorubicin
  • intracellular activity
  • transglutaminase 2