The interaction of butyrate with TNF-alpha during differentiation and apoptosis of colon epithelial cells: Role of NF-kappa B activation

Abstrakt

We demonstrated that TNF-alpha suppressed differentiation and potentiated cell death induced by butyrate (NaBt) in both adenocarcinoma HT-29 and fetal FHC human colon cells in vitro. Since TNF-alpha is a typical activator of NF-kappa B pathway, we studied the role of NF-kappa B activation in cell differentiation and death during the TNF-alpha and NaBt co-treatment. TNF-alpha induced rapid NF-kappa B activation in both HT-29 and FHC cell lines and this effect was differently modulated by NaBt in these two cell lines. In HT-29 cells, NaBt potentiated NF-kappa B activity induced by TNF-alpha after 4 h treatment. However, this initial potentiation of NF-kappa B activity was not observed in FHC cells. During additional time of TNF-alpha and NaBt co-treatment, NaBt decreased the TNF-alpha-mediated NF-kappa B activity in both cell types. We also detected a different response of HT-29 and FHC cells after the pre-treatment with the NF-kappa B inhibitor parthenolide. Our results indicated that NaBt-mediated differentiation and apoptosis of colon epithelial cells can be modulated by TNF-alpha. Furthermore, we found significant differences in the mechanism of the NaBt and TNF-alpha co-treatment effects between cells of non-cancer and cancer origin, suggesting that the NF-kappa B pathway may be more effectively involved in these processes in cancer cells. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.