THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY1766 signalling has been the subject for a number of studies. However, most studies have focussed on specialised mammalian tissues, such as cardiovascular cell types, specialised epithelial cells and neurons. In the whole rat heart, ERK2 is inactivated in response to ischemia, followed by translocation of the inactive kinase to the nuclear compartment . Interestingly, ERK2 was activated in response to reperfusion, suggesting an interface capable of ERK activation in the nuclear membrane. Using the rat myocyte cell line H9c2, which has been shown to display ERK activities similar to those seen in whole organs during oxidative and metabolic stress (Abas et al., 2000), it was demonstrated that the ischemic nuclear translocation of ERK2 was dependent on both phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase) and the atypical protein kinase C (PKC) isoform PKC Mizukami et al., 2000). Hypoxia also stimulates ERK1/2 phosphorylation in vascular smooth muscle cells (Blaschke et al., 2002). To our knowledge, there are no studies on the effect of anoxia on ERK signalling in fish cells.Previously, we demonstrated a rapid, but transient activation of p38MAPK during chemical anoxia in rainbow trout hypodermal fibroblasts (RTHDF) (Ossum et al., 2004). Such an activation of p38 MAPK by anoxic insults have previously been reported in perfused hearts (Bogoyevitch et al., 1996;Nakano et al., 2000), ventricular myocytes (Saurin et al., 2000), H9c2 cells (Jung et al., 2004) and in neuronal tissues (Conrad et al., 1999;Harper and LoGrasso, 2001;Zhu et al., 2002). These studies demonstrate multiple functions of p38 MAPK . In PC12 cells, activation of p38 MAPK inhibits expression of cyclin D1 (Conrad et al., 1999) and in primary neurons, p38MAPK stabilises p53 and inhibits transformed mouse 3T3 cell double minute 2 (Mdm2) . Studies of vascular tissue demonstrate activation of mitogen-activated protein kinaseactivated protein kinase 2 (MAPKAP K-2) downstream of p38 MAPK (Bogoyevitch et al., 1996;Nakano et al., 2000). In primary rat astrocytes, p38 MAPK signalling has been implicated in induction of Hsp70 (Uehara et al., 1999). Together, these studies demonstrate roles for p38 MAPK in both cell death and protection. There are several observations showing cross-talk between p38MAPK and ERK (e.g. Singh et al., 1999). Thus it is probable that the observed activation of p38 MAPK could be followed by an inhibition of ERK.The present study was initiated to determine the effects of chemical anoxia, as well as nitrogen-induced anoxia and recovery on p44ERK activity in RTHDF (Ossum et al., 2004), originating from the rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss L. Here, we report that both chemical anoxia induced by sodium azide, as well as true anoxia (P O 2<0.1%) result in inhibition of p44ERK during azide treatment and that p44ERK is dramatically activated in response to recovery. In the chemical anoxia model we find that inhibition of p44ERK activity during anoxia is dependent on p38 MAPK activity, whereas its activation ...