A kinetic study of Caco-2 response to the various agonists revealed a peak in luciferase activity 12 h after stimulation with IL-1 and PMA. Later, the IL-1-induced activity

slowly decreased but never below the 50% of the maximum activity. In the presence of butyric acid, however, luciferase values continued to increase after 48 h (Fig. 2B). Moreover, a combination of butyric acid and PMA induced a strong synergistic stimulation of luciferase activity similar to that induced by IL-1 following 12 h stimulation. This effect was still apparent at 48 h (Fig. 2B). Combining butyric acid and IL-1 did not result in any synergistic effect, but only an additive one (Supporting Information Fig. 2). This effect is also observed using trichostatin A (TSA), an histone deacetylase BMN 673 purchase inhibitor. Consistent with the gene transcription data, TSLP protein was released in the supernatants 8 h after Caco-2 cells stimulation, with a maximum effect at 24 h in response to IL-1, TNF, PMA, and butyrate. Interestingly, TSLP concentration in the supernatant decreased by 48 h except when the cells were treated with

a combination of PMA and butyrate (Fig. 3). To further decipher the mechanism of TSLP regulation by both IL-1 and PMA, several signaling pathways inhibitors were selected. First, we used BAY 11–7082, a well-characterized HIF-1 pathway inhibitor of the NF-κB signaling. At a 20 μM concentration, it inhibited TSLP promoter-driven luciferase activity by about 60% in cells stimulated with IL-1 (Fig. 4). cAMP We then tested several kinase inhibitors and found that the p38 inhibitor, SB203580, and the protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor, H-89, were able to inhibit up to 50% of the IL-1-stimulated luciferase activity in Caco-2 reporter cells, while the MEK 1/2 inhibitor, UO126 had a lower but still statistically significant

effect (Fig. 4). These results indicate that both the NF-κB and the AP-1 pathways are involved in the IL-1-dependent induction of TSLP. As expected, the PKC inhibitor, bisindolylmaleimide (BIM), had no significant effect on the IL-1-induced reporter gene activity but almost completely abolished the PMA-induced activity (Fig. 4). We then investigated whether the remaining activity induced by IL-1 after BAY 11–7082 treatment was dependent on other kinases. The combined action of BAY 11–7082 with SB203580 or H-89 drastically reduced the remaining IL-1-induced activity, thus corroborating the hypothesis of cooperation between the NF-κB and AP-1 sites on the IL-1-induced TSLP promoter activity. Finally, we investigated the role of several kinases in the PMA-induced TSLP expression. Besides its expected inhibition by BIM, the other inhibitors did not affect the PMA-induced TSLP luciferase activity. As shown in Figure 1 using an in silico analysis of a 4-kb-long region of TSLP promoter, we identified several putative NF-κB and AP-1 binding sites.