Role of glycogen synthase kinase-3 in TNF-alpha-induced NF-kappaB activation and apoptosis in hepatocytes.

Nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) prevents hepatocytes from undergoing apoptosis during development and liver regeneration. Mice with inactivated glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3beta die from hepatocyte apoptosis during development due to a defect in NF-kappaB activation (Hoeflich KP, Luo J, Rubie EA, Tsao MS, Jin O, and Woodgett JR. Nature 406: 86-90, 2000). In this study, we determined the role of GSK-3 in TNF-alpha-induced NF-kappaB activation and cell death in primary hepatocytes. LiCl, an established inhibitor of GSK-3, sensitized primary rat hepatocytes toward TNF-alpha-mediated apoptosis resulting in 90% cell death after 24 h. This was accompanied by increased caspase 8-like and 3-like activities, nuclear fragmentation and DNA laddering. LiCl treatment had no effect on IkappaB-alpha degradation, IkappaB kinase (IKK) activity, NF-kappaB binding activity, and p65 nuclear import and export, but decreased transcription of the NF-kappaB-dependent inducible nitric oxide synthase gene and a NF-kappaB-driven reporter gene. The p65 sequence revealed four potential GSK-3 phosphorylation sites within its COOH-terminal transactivation domains and recombinant GSK-3beta phosphorylated glutathione S-transferase (GST)-p65(354-551), but not GST-p65(1-305) in vitro. These results indicate that GSK-3 protects hepatocytes from TNF-alpha-induced apoptosis through p65 phosphorylation and upregulation of NF-kappaB transactivation.