RNA-destabilizing factor tristetraprolin negatively regulates NF-kappaB signaling

Tristetraprolin (TTP) is a CCCH zinc finger-containing protein that destabilizes mRNA by binding to an AU-rich element. Mice deficient in TTP develop a severe inflammatory syndrome mainly because of overproduction of tumor necrosis factor alpha. We report here that TTP also negatively regulates NF-kappaB signaling at the transcriptional corepressor level, by which it may repress inflammatory gene transcription. TTP expression inhibited NF-kappaB-dependent transcription. However, overexpression of TTP did not affect reporter mRNA stability. Instead, TTP functioned as a corepressor of p65/NF-kappaB. In support of this concept, we found that TTP physically interacted with the p65 subunit of NF-kappaB and was also associated with HDAC1, -3, and -7 in vivo. Treatment with histone deacetylase inhibitors or small interfering RNA induced HDAC1 or HDAC3 knockdown completely or partly abolished the inhibitory activity of TTP on NF-kappaB reporter activation. Consistently, chromatin immunoprecipitation showed decreased recruitment of HDAC1 and increased recruitment of CREB-binding protein on the Mcp-1 promoter in TTP(-/-) cells compared with wild-type cells. Moreover, overexpression of TTP blocked CREB-binding protein-induced acetylation of p65/NF-kappaB. Taken together, these data suggest that TTP may also function in vivo as a modulator in suppressing the transcriptional activity of NF-kappaB.