CELLULAR ASPECTS OF REGULATION OF NUCLEAR FACTOR ƒB (NF-κB) TRANSCRIPTIONAL ACTIVITY IN SENSORY NEURONS IN VITRO

Nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) controls the expression of multiple anti/proapoptotic genes, including those in the nervous cells. Intranuclear deacetylation and acetylation events are implicated in the regulation of NF-κB transcriptional activity. The goal of the work was to demonstrate the transcriptional activity of NF-κB in the sensory neurons in vitro and to find out whether NF-κB activity could be controlled by modification of acetylation processes, using a transgenic line of NF-κB reporter mice in which activation of NF-κB drives the expression of the lac-z gene. We show that the expression of the reporter gene was absent in transgenic neurons cultured in normal growth medium or stimulated by TNF-α. However, NF-κB transcriptional activity in most neurons was induced by in vitro exposure to Trichostatin A, which is a specific inhibitor of histone deacetylases. Taken together our results show that the transcriptional activity of NF-κB is limited in sensory neurons due to a transcriptional repression mechanism mediated by histone deacetylases.

neuron, transcription factor NF-κB, reporter gene