Abstract
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a cytokine that has broad effects on immune system and inflammatory response. A growing body of evidence implicates the role of MIF in tumor growth and metastasis. Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a bioactive lipid mediator, regulates colon cancer cell proliferation, invasion, and survival through LPA2 receptor. Loss of LPA2 results in decreased expression of MIF in a rodent model of colon cancer, but the mechanism of MIF regulation by LPA is yet to be determined. In this study, we show that LPA transcriptionally regulates MIF expression in colon cancer cells. MIF knockdown decreased LPA-mediated proliferation of HCT116 human adenocarcinoma cells without altering the basal proliferation rates. Conversely, extracellular recombinant MIF stimulated cell proliferation, suggesting that the effect of MIF may in part be mediated through activation of surface receptor. We have shown recently that LPA increases hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α) expression. We found that MIF regulation by LPA was ablated by knockdown of HIF1α, indicating that MIF is a transcriptional target of HIF1α. Conversely, knockdown of MIF ablated an increase in HIF1α expression in LPA-treated cells, suggesting a reciprocal relationship between HIF1α and MIF. LPA stimulated co-immunoprecipitation of HIF1α and MIF, indicating that their association is necessary for stabilization of HIF1α. It has been shown previously that CSN9 signalosome subunit 5 (CSN5) interacts with HIF1α to stabilize HIF1α under aerobic conditions. We found that LPA did not alter expression of CSN5, but stimulated its interaction with HIF1α and MIF. Depletion of CSN5 mitigated the association between HIF1α and MIF, indicating that CSN5 acts as a physical link. We suggest that HIF1α, MIF, and CSN5 form a ternary complex whose formation is necessary to prevent degradation of HIF1α under aerobic conditions.