Taxol shares the ability of bacterial lipopolysaccharide to induce tyrosine phosphorylation of microtubule-associated protein kinase.

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Microtubule-associated proteins may mediate the activation of macrophages by bacterial LPS. Three lines of evidence support this hypothesis: a) Taxol, a microtubule-binding diterpene, mimics the ability of LPS to induce cytokines and down-regulate receptors for TNF-alpha. In recombinant inbred mouse strains differing at the Lps gene, responsiveness to these effects of Taxol co-segregates with responsiveness to LPS. b) In vitro, LPS binds specifically to MT and preferentially to beta-tubulin. c) LPS activates microtubule-associated protein-2 kinase (MAPK). The present studies bring together and extend these lines of evidence. a) Taxol, like LPS, rapidly induces tyrosine phosphorylation of MAPK in mouse macrophages, and triggers MAPK to phosphorylate an exogenous substrate. b) Tyrosine phosphorylation of MAPK is an extremely rapid cellular response both to taxol and LPS. c) Macrophages from C3H/HeJ mice, which carry a defective Lps gene, fail to activate MAPK in response to taxol or LPS, although they activate MAPK in response to insulin or IFN-gamma. These results suggest that tyrosine phosphorylation of MAPK is among the earliest known response of macrophages to LPS. Taxol mimics LPS with respect to immediate MAPK activation, later transcriptional events, and the genetic control of both sets of responses. LPS and taxol thus appear to share an early step in a functionally important signal transduction pathway that may involve MT.