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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1994 Jun 7;91(12):5416–5420. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.12.5416

Activation of the pp90rsk and mitogen-activated serine/threonine protein kinases by ionizing radiation.

S Kharbanda 1, A Saleem 1, T Shafman 1, Y Emoto 1, R Weichselbaum 1, D Kufe 1
PMCID: PMC44006  PMID: 8202500

Abstract

The cellular response to ionizing radiation (IR) includes induction of the c-jun and EGR1 early response genes. The present work has examined potential cytoplasmic signaling cascades that transduce IR-induced signals to the nucleus. The results demonstrate activation of the 40S ribosomal protein S6 kinase, pp90rsk, in human U-937 myeloid leukemia cells. Partial purification of pp90rsk by affinity chromatography demonstrated an increase in S6 peptide phosphorylation when comparing irradiated with control cells. IR-induced activation of pp90rsk was further confirmed in immune-complex kinase assays. In contrast to these findings, there was no detectable induction of pp70S6K. Previous work has demonstrated that mitogen-activated protein kinase activates pp90rsk. The present results further show that IR treatment is associated with induction of mitogen-activated protein kinase activity and that this event is temporally related to activation of pp90rsk and early response gene expression. These findings suggest that activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase/pp90rsk cascade is involved in the response of cells to IR exposure.

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Selected References

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