Relationships between phosphatidic acid and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases in activated human blood mononuclear cells.

We have previously shown that mitogenic activation of human PBMC rapidly increases both the intracellular phosphatidic acid (PA) level and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) activity, with time-course responses, suggesting a causative relationship between the two events. PA also directly stimulated cAMP-PDE activity in acellular systems. Thus the mitogenic properties of PA night be due to its ability to lower the level of cAMP, a negative effector of lymphocyte activation, through PDE activation. In this study, human PBMC were stimulated either with the mitogenic lectin ConA, the anti-CD3 mAb OKT3, or the phorbol ester TPA. All three agonists increased the radiolabeled PA level and the PA mass in treated cells and simultaneously increased cytosolic and particulate cAMP- and cGMP-PDE activities, with significant positive correlations between PA accumulation and PDE activities. Furthermore, the ConA-induced PDE activation was dose-dependently reduced by treatment of PBMC with the diacylglycerol-kinase inhibitor R59022. This compound also dose-dependently lowered the PA level and inhibited the proliferative response to ConA. In addition, TPA-induced PDE activation was totally abolished by ethanol, which strongly reduced PA accumulation in response to the phorbol ester. These data suggest that PA increase may be linked to mitogen-induced PDE activation. Experiments performed in the presence of rolipram indicated that ConA and TPA stimulated both the rolipram-sensitive PDE4 and the rolipram-insensitive PDE activities, OKT3 being more active on PDE4. All three agonists stimulated the cGMP-specific PDE5. These results suggest that PA is an important component of the mechanisms that maintain a low level of cyclic nucleotides, which is a prerequisite for an optimal lymphoproliferative response.