Exuberant fibroproliferation is a common complication after injury for reasons that are not well understood1. One key component of wound repair that is often overlooked is mechanical force, which regulates cell-matrix interactions through intracellular focal adhesion components, including focal adhesion kinase (FAK)1,2. Here we report that FAK is activated after cutaneous injury and that this process is potentiated by mechanical loading. Fibroblast-specific FAK knockout mice have substantially less inflammation and fibrosis than control mice in a model of hypertrophic scar formation. We show that FAK acts through extracellular-related kinase (ERK) to mechanically trigger the secretion of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1, also known as CCL2), a potent chemokine that is linked to human fibrotic disorders3–5. Similarly, MCP-1 knockout mice form minimal scars, indicating that inflammatory chemokine pathways are a major mechanism by which FAK mechanotransduction induces fibrosis. Small-molecule inhibition of FAK blocks these effects in human cells and reduces scar formation in vivo through attenuated MCP-1 signaling and inflammatory cell recruitment. These findings collectively indicate that physical force regulates fibrosis through inflammatory FAK–ERK–MCP-1 pathways and that molecular strategies targeting FAK can effectively uncouple mechanical force from pathologic scar formation.

TRAIL receptor (TRAIL-R) signaling has been implicated in inducing apoptosis in tumor cells, but little is understood about its physiological function. Here, we report the generation and characterization of TRAIL-R(-/-) mice, which develop normal lymphocyte populations but possess enhanced innate immune responses. TRAIL-R(-/-) mice exhibited increased clearance of murine cytomegalovirus that correlated with increased levels of IL-12, IFN-alpha, and IFN-gamma. Stimulation of macrophages with Mycobacterium and Toll-like receptor (TLR)-2, -3, and -4, but not TLR9, ligands resulted in high levels of TRAIL upregulation and enhanced cytokine production in TRAIL-R(-/-) cells. The immediate-early TLR signaling events in TRAIL-R(-/-) macrophages and dendritic cells are normal, but I kappa B-alpha homeostatic regulation and NF-kappa B activity at later time points is perturbed. These data suggest that TRAIL-R negatively regulates innate immune responses.

Embryonal carcinoma (EC) cell lines are models for early cells in mouse embryogenesis. A 300-base pair fragment of the heavy chain enhancer was inactive in F9 EC cells, unlike in other nonlymphoid cells where it has significant activity. Alterations of the octamer motif increased enhancer activity. Nuclear extracts from F9 cells contained an octamer binding protein (NF-A3) that was unique to EC cells; the amount of NF-A3 decreased upon differentiation. It is proposed that NF-A3 represses specific regulatory sequences that contain the octamer motif. Thus, the same DNA sequence mediates either negative or positive transcriptional effects, depending on the cell type.

The activity of the enhancer for the K immunoglobulin light chain gene critically depends on the presence in the nucleus of the NF-KB protein. We purified NF-KB over 50,000-fold and identified two protein species, 42 and 44 kDa, that could be eluted and renatured from a sodium dodecyl sulfate/polyacrylamide gel to give specific DNA-binding activity. Binding of the purified bovine NF-KB as well as that from human and murine B-or T-lymphoid cell extracts was dramatically stimulated by nucleoside triphosphates. This effect distinguished NF-KB from a related factor, H2-TF1. Purified NF-KB interacted efficiently with regulatory sequences that function during either B-or T-lymphocyte activation, including the human immunodeficiency virus enhancer and a NF-KB binding site we detected in the interleukin 2 enhancer.