Calcineurin activation protects T cells from glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis.

In T cell hybridomas, TCR/CD3 complex-mediated stimulation induces apoptosis but inhibits that induced by glucocorticoids. A combination of ionomycin (IM), a calcium ionophore, and PMA, a protein kinase C activator, mimics the effects of the TCR/CD3-mediated stimulation. Glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis is, however, markedly inhibited by IM alone, and less markedly by PMA alone. The immunosuppressant FK506 canceled the inhibition by IM but not that by PMA. As calcineurin (CN) is one of the target molecules of FK506, we examined whether CN activation might have an anti-apoptotic effect. BOG8, a T cell hybridoma, was stably transfected with a mutant CN catalytic subunit with Ca2+/calmodulin-independent, constitutive but FK506-sensitive phosphatase activity. The transfectant clones were fairly resistant to glucocorticoid-induced death. Their resistance, however, was hardly affected by FK506 when added simultaneously with glucocorticoid, but was lost after a prolonged preincubation with FK506. In the parent BOG8 cells, FK506 failed to cancel the inhibitory effect of IM on glucocorticoid-induced death when the addition of FK506 was delayed for 1 h or more. These results suggest that CN activation is required for the resistance only as an early event. The transfectant clones produced IL-2 but failed to undergo apoptosis upon stimulation with PMA alone, whereas apoptosis was induced by a combination of IM and PMA. These results suggest that activation-induced cell death may require a higher level of CN activity than IL-2 production or may require another Ca(2+)-dependent pathway.