Open Access

ARTICLE

Evidence for IL-6 promoter nuclear activation in U937 cells stimulated with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium porins

Emiliana Finamore^1,*, Mariateresa Vitiello^1,*, Marina D’Isanto¹, Emilia Galdiero², Annarita Falanga³, Aikaterini Kampanaraki¹, Katia Raieta¹, Marilena Galdiero¹

1 Department of Experimental Medicine, Section of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology, Second University of Naples, Naples, Italy
2 Department of General Physiology, Faculty of Science MM.FF. NN., Hygiene and Microbiology Section, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy
3 Department of Biological Science, Division of Biostructures, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy

* Corresponding Author: M. Galdiero,

European Cytokine Network 2009, 20(3), 140-147. https://doi.org/10.1684/ecn.2009.0158

Accepted 28 May 2009;

Abstract

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine and plays an active role in inflammatory and immune responses, contributing to a multitude of physiological and pathophysiological processes. In this study, we address the molecular mechanism of IL-6 transcriptional induction and propose a correlation between acti-vated NF-κB localization and IL-6 expression. In particular, we detected, by ChIP assay, that occupation of the IL-6 gene promoter site is dependent on activated NF-κB. In fact, after porin stimulation, the NF-κB p65 sub-unit is activated, translocates to the nucleus and binds to the IL-6 promoter sequence.Elucidation of the host signaling pathways and identification of the transcription factors that contribute to IL-6 expression, may aid in the understanding of host susceptibility to gram-negative infections and in identifying new therapeutic strategies in a variety of infectious diseases.

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Keywords

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