The differential ability of IL-8 and neutrophil-activating peptide-2 to induce attenuation of chemotaxis is mediated by their divergent capabilities to phosphorylate CXCR2 (IL-8 receptor B).

IL-8 and neutrophil-activating peptide-2 (NAP-2) are two closely related C-X-C chemokines that differ in their abilities to induce chemotaxis of human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN). Although two IL-8R types are expressed by PMN, only CXCR2 binds NAP-2 and IL-8 with equally high affinity. By using enriched CXCR2-transfected 293 cells, we show that high doses of IL-8 induce attenuation of chemotaxis, while equivalent doses of NAP-2 do not. Phosphorylation analysis shows that IL-8 induces higher levels of phosphorylation of the carboxyl terminus of CXCR2 than does NAP-2, suggesting that the level of phosphorylation contributes to the ability of the chemokines to attenuate the chemotactic response. To directly evaluate this difference, we analyzed the ability of receptors mutated to delete regions that highly express potential phosphorylation sites to be phosphorylated and to mediate chemotactic attenuation. We found that a carboxyl terminus-truncated mutant of CXCR2 was not phosphorylated by high doses of IL-8, as determined by in vivo phosphorylation assays and by analysis of the electrophoretic mobility of the receptors on SDS-PAGE gels. This mutated receptor had a significantly lower ability to attenuate IL-8-induced chemotaxis, indicating that the attenuation of chemotaxis is mediated by chemokine-induced receptor phosphorylation. In conclusion, the data show that the greater ability of IL-8 to induce receptor phosphorylation contributes to its more potent attenuation of chemotaxis as compared with NAP-2. This differential phosphorylation by IL-8 and NAP-2 of CXCR2 provides a basis for the divergent outcome of PMN-induced inflammation in response to these two closely related C-X-C chemokines.