Abstract
Chemokines and their receptors play diverse roles in regulating cancer growth and progression. The receptor CXCR3 can have two splice variants with opposite functions. CXCR3-A promotes cell growth, whereas CXCR3-B mediates growth-inhibitory signals. However, the negative signals through CXCR3-B in cancer cells are not well characterized. In this study, we found that CXCR3-B-mediated signaling in MCF-7 and T47D breast cancer cells induced apoptotic cell death. Signals through CXCR3-B decreased the levels of the antiapoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL and increased the expression of apoptotic cleaved poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. Along with up-regulation in apoptosis, CXCR3-B signals were associated with a decrease in cellular autophagy with reduced levels of the autophagic markers Beclin-1 and LC3B. Notably, CXCR3-B down-regulated the expression of the cytoprotective and antiapoptotic molecule heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) at the transcriptional level. There was an increased nuclear localization of Bach-1 and nuclear export of Nrf2, which are important negative and positive transcription factors, respectively, for HO-1 expression. We also observed that CXCR3-B promoted the activation of p38 MAPK and the inhibition of ERK-1/2. CXCR3-B could not induce cancer cell apoptosis at the optimal level when we either inhibited p38 activity or knocked down Bach-1. Further, CXCR3-B-induced apoptosis was down-regulated when we overexpressed HO-1. Together, our data suggest that CXCR3-B mediates a growth-inhibitory signal in breast cancer cells through the modulations of nuclear translocation of Bach-1 and Nrf2 and down-regulation of HO-1. We suggest that the induction of CXCR3-B-mediated signaling can serve as a novel therapeutic approach where the goal is to promote tumor cell apoptosis.