Interferon gamma elevates Epithin/Matripase, a tumor associated membrane type serine protease, in macrophage

초록

Epithin/Matriptase is a type II transmembrane serine protease (TTSP) that is involved in the degradation of ECM components and in the cleavage and activation of pro-HGF, and pro-uPA. Epithin/Matriptase was reported to be originally expressed in epithelial cells and to be overexpressed in a variety of epithelial cancer and to be related to the poor prognosis of cancer. Recently, microarray data showed that epithin/Matriptase is expressed in several tissues, although its precise role is obscure. Recently, epithin/Matriptase was reported to be involved in the activation of pro-MSP. In these studies, we show that epithin/Matriptase was expressed in macrophage cell line RAW264.7. Moreover, its expression in the macrophage was induced by interferon-, but neither LPS, TNF- nor TGF-. Interferon- increased mRNA of epithin/Matriptase. In addition, the levels of epithin protein both in the whole cell and in the cell surface were enhanced by interferon-. AG490, JAK kinase inhibitor, prevent the IFN--induced increase of epithin/Matriptase protein. These data suggest that the induction of epithin/Matriptase by interferon- is involved in the procedure of macrophage activation as well as in the cancer progression.