IL-1β-dependent regulation of C/EBPδ transcriptional activity

We have previously shown that the transcription factor C/EBPδ is involved in the intestinal inflammatory response. C/EBPδ regulates several inflammatory response genes, such as haptoglobin, in the rat intestinal epithelial cell line IEC-6 in response to IL-1. However, the different C/EBPδ domains involved in IL-1β-mediated transcriptional activation and the kinases implicated have not been properly defined. To address this, we determined the role of the p38 MAP kinase in the regulation of C/EBPδ transcriptional activity. The IL-1-dependent induction of the acute phase protein gene haptoglobin in IEC-6 cells was decreased in response to the p38 MAP kinase inhibitor SB203580, as determined by Northern blot. Transcriptional activity of C/EBPδ was repressed by the specific inhibitor of the p38 MAP kinase, as assessed by transient transfection assays. Mutagenesis studies and transient transfection assays revealed an important domain for transcriptional activation between amino acids 70 and 108. This domain overlapped with a docking site for the p38 MAP kinase, between amino acids 75 and 85, necessary to insure C/EBPδ phosphorylation. Deletion of this domain led to a decrease in basal transcriptional activity of C/EBPδ and in p300-dependent transactivation, as assessed by transient transfection assays, and in IL-1-dependent haptoglobin induction. This unusual arrangement of a kinase docking site within a transactivation domain may functionally be important for the regulation of C/EBPδ transcriptional activity.