Soluble fractalkine prevents monocyte chemoattractant protein-1-induced monocyte migration via inhibition of stress-activated protein kinase 2/p38 and matrix metalloproteinase activities.

In this study, we address the question of the cross-talk between two chemokines that are cosecreted during inflammation, namely monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and soluble fractalkine (s-FKN), toward monocyte migration. We found that s-FKN fails to induce MonoMac6 cell migration per se. Interestingly, this chemokine antagonizes transendothelial migration and chemotaxis of MonoMac6 cells and freshly isolated human monocytes induced by MCP-1, indicating a direct effect of s-FKN on monocytic cells. In this study, we found that stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK)1/c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 and SAPK2/p38 are involved in the control of MCP-1-induced MonoMac6 cell migration. We demonstrated that s-FKN abrogates the MCP-1-induced SAPK2/p38 activation as well as the upstream Pyk2 activity. Furthermore, we observed that s-FKN also inhibits the activity of a major matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), namely MMP-2. Taken collectively, our results indicate that the s-FKN antagonizes the chemoattractant effect of MCP-1 on monocytes, likely by inhibiting crucial signaling pathways, like SAPK2/p38 and MMP-2 activities.