Dishevelled interacts with p65 and acts as a repressor of NF-κB-mediated transcription

Dishevelled (Dvl) is a highly conserved protein family that plays an important role in mediating Wnt signaling from membrane to cytoplasm. Recently we reported that Dvl also functions in the nucleus by stabilizing the β-catenin/TCFs transcriptional complex. Here we describe that Dvl may function as a repressor of NF-κB. Our data show that Dvl directly binds to p65 and their interaction occurs in the nucleus. Dvl expression inhibits p65-mediated or TNF-α-stimulated activation of the NF-κB dependent reporter. This action of Dvl, however, is not dependent on Wnt or its downstream effector β-catenin. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay shows that recruitment of p65 to the promoters of NF-κB target genes is significantly enhanced when expression of Dvl is knocked down. Consistently, the expression level of a subset of NF-κB target genes is also increased after knock-down of Dvl. Moreover, our data suggest that Dvl may relieve the anti-apoptotic effect of NF-κB, thus play a role in promoting apoptosis. Therefore, this work demonstrates a novel function of Dvl in modulating NF-κB-regulated gene transcription.