Summary Protein kinase C (PKC) has been implicated in the control of epithelial proliferative activity and in the process of malignant transformation. Helicobacter pylori (H.p.) infection is associated with increased gastric epithelial cell proliferation and has been linked with gastric carcinoma. In the present study, we report that the H.p. fatty acid cis-9,1 0-methyleneoctadecanoic acid (MOA) directly activates PKC (Ka 3.3 gM). Keywords: Helicobacterpylori; fatty acid; protein kinase C; cell proliferation Protein kinase C (PKC) is a family of enzymes that plays a pivotal role in transmembrane signalling, cell growth and cell division (Nishizuka, 1986;Clemens et al, 1992). Diacylglycerol (DAG), a breakdown product of polyphosphoinositides, is a physiological effector of this(ese) enzyme(s). Tumour-promoting phorbol esters, such as 12-O-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate (TPA), which interact with the DAG site, are activators of the enzyme and several lines of evidence indicate that tumour promotion is related to PKC activation (Martelly and Castagna, 1989). Other tumour promoters structurally unrelated to TPA have also been described as activators of PKC, such as teleocidin B (Fujiki et al, 1984), chloroform (Roghani et al, 1987) and bile acids (Huang et al, 1992).Helicobacter pylori (H.p.) is a Gram-negative bacterium that causes chronic gastritis and peptic ulcer diseases (NIH Consensus Conference, 1994). Moreover, an association between the microorganism and gastric cancer has been demonstrated by epidemiological studies (Forman, 1993), but a causal link between gastric cancer and H.p. infection has not been proven. H.p. produces unusual fatty acids such as cis-9,10-methyleneoctadecanoic acid (Goodwin et al, 1985). Cis-unsaturated fatty acids are known as tumour promoters (Bull et al, 1981) and PKC activators (McPhail et al, 1984).There is some evidence that PKC plays a crucial role in gastric epithelial proliferation. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and transforming growth factor a (TGF-a) have been reported to be mitogenic for primary cultured gastric parietel, chief and mucous cells (Chen et al, 1991;Rutten et al, 1993). In addition to the ability of these growth factors to stimulate tyrosine kinase activity, to increase inositol trisphosphate and to interact with G proteins, EGF has been shown to activate PKC (Reynolds et al, 1993;Wang et al, 1996). Overexpression of EGF, TGF-a and their receptor genes are thought to participate in the rapid cell proliferation seen in gastric cancer (Pfeiffer et al, 1990).Based on these observations, we have examined the characteristics of cis-9,10-methyleneoctadecanoic acid (MOA)-mediated PKC activation and the effect of MOA on cellular DNA synthesis.
MATERIALS AND METHODS MaterialsRat brain PKC (a mixture of alpha-, beta-and gamma-isoforms) purified to greater than 97% by the method of Allen and Katz (1991) was purchased from Biomol (Hamburg, Germany). MOA (purity 99%) was synthesized by J Holzkampf