1C and D, SARM inhibited both TRIF- and MyD88-mediated AP-1 activation and not just the TRIF-mediated pathway alone. Furthermore, we observed that SARMΔN inhibited the basal AP-1 activity as well, with or without TRIF/MyD88 overexpression (Fig. 1C and D). At this

juncture, it is not apparent which pathway(s) contribute to this basal learn more AP-1 activity. Nevertheless, these observations indicate that SARM-mediated inhibition may not be exclusively directed at TRIF or MyD88, but that SARM may possibly also directly inhibit MAPK phosphorylation. To test whether SARM-mediated AP-1 inhibition was attributable to the suppression of MAPK phosphorylation, we assayed for the phosphorylation of p38 MAPK in HEK293 cells after transfection with SARM alone, or together with TRIF or MyD88. Western blot showed that overexpression of SARM dose-dependently reduced the phosphorylation of p38 regardless of TRIF or MyD88 (Fig. 2), suggesting that SARM inhibits the MAPK pathway independently of TRIF or MyD88. It was reported that SARM inhibits TRIF- but not MyD88-mediated signaling and that SARM–TRIF interaction is responsible for the immune inhibition selleck products by SARM 23. However, our results indicate that in the case of MAPK inhibition, mechanisms other than SARM–TRIF interaction might prevail. These observations are not likely to be attributable to the secondary effect of SARM–TRIF interaction

since SARM suppresses the MyD88- or TRIF-activated MAPK level down to (or even below) the basal level (Figs. 1 and 2). To ensure that our observations of SARM’s inhibitory action are not restricted to the HEK293 cells, we further tested the potential inhibition by SARM of LPS-activated AP-1 in U937 cells, which is a human monocytic cell line. Figure 3A shows that the LPS-induced AP-1 activation in U937 cells was clearly reduced DOCK10 by SARM expression. Two genes downstream of AP-1, collagenase-1 (matrix metalloproteinase-1) 32, 33 and IL-8 were also repressed by SARM (Fig. 3B and C), further supporting SARM’s inhibition of AP-1 activation in U937 cells. To exclude the possibility that our observations were due to artifacts of overexpression, we knocked down

endogenous SARM expression in HEK293 cells using siRNA designated S1, S2 and S3, which target the SAM2, TIR and ARM domains, respectively. Using RT-PCR, we confirmed the suppression of endogenous SARM mRNA in HEK293 cell by all three siRNA (Fig. 4A). Transfection with AP-1 reporter together with any of the siRNA showed that the siRNA abrogated the inhibitory action of SARM, resulting in an increased basal level of AP-1 activation (Fig. 4B). These results strongly support the role of SARM in AP-1 inhibition. Although previous study reported that LPS did not substantially modify SARM mRNA expression 23, we recently observed the horseshoe crab SARM transcription to be dynamically regulated during Gram-negative bacterial infection 20.