Lysophosphatidic acid interacts with transforming growth factor-beta signaling to mediate keratinocyte growth arrest and chemotaxis.

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA, 1-acyl-glycerol-3-phosphate) plays an important role in diverse biological responses including cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, migration, and tumor cell invasion. The most prominent source of LPA is platelets from which it is released after thrombin activation and is assumed to be an essential function of this lysophospholipid in cutaneous wound closure. Therefore, we examined the role of LPA on biological responses of keratinocytes. Although LPA potently enhances keratinocyte migration, it strongly induces growth arrest of proliferating epidermal cells. Thus, LPA possesses analogous actions to transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), which is also released from degranulating platelets at wounded sites. In contrast to LPA, the intracellular signaling events of TGF-beta have been clearly identified and indicate that Smad3 is involved in chemotaxis and cell growth arrest of keratinocytes induced by this cytokine. Here we show that LPA, although it does not alter TGF-beta release is capable to activate Smad3 and results in a heteromerization with Smad4 and binding of the complex to its specific DNA-promoter elements. LPA completely fails to induce chemotaxis in Smad3-deficient cells, whereas growth inhibition is at least in part reduced. These findings indicate an essential role of Smad3 in diverse biological properties of LPA-stimulated keratinocytes.