Differential expression of LR11 during proliferation and differentiation of cultured neuroblastoma cells

An involvement of the low density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) gene family in both intracellular signal pathways for neural organization and metabolic pathways for lipoprotein homeostasis is now well established. The discovery of LR11, a mosaic LDLR family member offers the opportunity to gain new insights into receptor multifunctionality. Here, we studied the proliferation-dependent expression of LR11 mRNA and protein using two cultured cell lines, IMR32 neuroblastoma and PC12 pheochromocytoma. Within 24 h, the LR11 protein rose 1.9-fold in proliferating IMR32 cells, and increased further to 5.3-fold at 72 h. This conformed with a transcript level increase of 4.7-fold at 72 h in the proliferating cells. On the other hand, under differentiation conditions, a 2.9-fold increase was observed within 24 h, but at 72 h thereafter the protein levels decreased to 60% of control. The transcript also increased to 1. 8-fold within 24 h, and then decreased to 1.1-fold at 72 h. In order to assess the transcriptional activities of the LR11 gene, we identified the 5'-flanking region of the murine LR11 gene. Transfection of IMR32 and PC12 cells with plasmids containing the whole or deleted fragments of 5'-flanking region showed that element(s) responsible for the above described different transcriptional activities are located in the upstream sequence between -861 and -396. Thus, the transcription of LR11 in these two cell systems is regulated differently during proliferation and differentiation, suggesting that the multifunctionality of LR11, as well as other LDLR family members, for rapid cell growth in malignant cells and neural outgrowth in cultured neurons, respectively. The possible involvement of LR11 in cellular proliferation and differentiation sheds new light on its functions in neurons, malignant, and vascular cells.