The mammalian odorant receptors (ORs) comprise a large family of G protein-coupled receptors that are critical determinants of both the odorant response profile and the axonal identity of the olfactory sensory neurons in which they are expressed. Although the pathway by which ORs activate odor transduction is well established, the mechanism by which they direct axons into proper glomerular relationships remains unknown. We have developed a gain-of-function approach by using injection of retroviral vectors into the embryonic olfactory epithelium to study the ORs' contribution to axon guidance. By ectopically expressing ORs, we demonstrate that functional OR proteins induce axonal coalescence. Furthermore, ectopic expression of G␣ mutants reveals that activation of the signal transduction cascade is sufficient to cause axonal convergence into glomeruli. Analysis of G␣ subunit expression indicates that development and odorant transduction use separate transduction pathways. Last, we establish that the generation of cAMP through adenylyl cyclase 3 is necessary to establish proper axonal identity. Our data point to a model in which axonal sorting is accomplished by OR stimulation of cAMP production by coupling to G␣s.axon guidance ͉ development ͉ olfaction

A remarkable feature of peripheral olfactory projections in mammals is the convergence of axons from olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) expressing the same odorant receptor (OR) into the same glomeruli. There is mounting evidence that the ORs play critical roles in glomerular formation. However, it remains unclear how the OR exerts its function of sorting axons into homogeneity. We and others have shown previously that activation of the G-protein/cAMP signaling cascade underlies glomerular formation. Here, we further investigated whether establishment of the mature glomerular array requires adenylyl cyclase 3 (AC3), a key component of the OR-mediated cAMPdependent signaling cascade. We found robust AC3 expression in both OSN cilia and axons during the period of active glomerular formation in neonatal mice. Examination of OR-tagged mice in an AC3 knock-out background revealed that the absence of AC3 drastically and differentially perturbed the formation of several representative glomeruli. Furthermore, heterogeneous glomeruli innervated by axons of multiple OSN populations persisted in such mice well into adulthood. In addition, reproducible aberrations in axonal projections in AC3Ϫ/Ϫ mice appeared to correlate with the activation of specific OR loci, regardless of the expressed receptor sequence, suggesting that OR expression is but one factor in determining OSN axonal projections. Together, our results indicate that cAMP signaling is critical for axonal sorting and the establishment of axonal identity.

The mechanisms by which bile acids induce apoptosis in hepatocytes and the signaling pathways involved in the control of cell death are not understood fully. Here, we examined the impact of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling on the survival of primary hepatocytes exposed to bile acids.

Key Points• Loss of Bim contributes to adaptive rather than intrinsic bortezomib resistance in multiple myeloma.• A Bim-targeting strategy combining an HDACI with a BH3 mimetic overcomes such resistance through a new link between autophagy and apoptosis.

BH3 mimetic drugs induce cell death by antagonizing the activity of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins. Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors that function as transcriptional repressors down-regulate the Bcl-2 family member Mcl-1 and increase the activity of selective BH3-mimetics that fail to target this protein. In this study, we determined whether CDK inhibitors potentiate the activity of pan-BH3 mimetics by directly neutralizing Mcl-1. Specifically, we evaluated interactions between the prototypical pan-CDK inhibitor flavopiridol and the pan-BH3-mimetic obatoclax in multiple myeloma (MM) cells in which Mcl-1 is critical for survival. Co-administration of flavopiridol and obatoclax synergistically triggered apoptosis in both drug-naive and drug-resistant MM cells. Mechanistic investigations revealed that flavopiridol inhibited Mcl-1 transcription but increased transcription of Bim and its binding to Bcl-2/Bcl-xL. Obatoclax prevented Mcl-1 recovery and potentiated release of Bim from Bcl-2/Bcl-xL and Mcl-1, accompanied by activation of Bax/Bak. Whether administered singly or in combination with obatoclax, flavopiridol also induced up-regulation of multiple BH3-only proteins, including BimEL, BimL, Noxa, and Bik/NBK. Notably, shRNA knock-down of Bim or Noxa abrogated lethality triggered by the flavopiridol/obatoclax combination in vitro and in vivo. Together, our findings demonstrate that CDK inhibition potentiates pan-BH3-mimetic activity through a cooperative mechanism involving up-regulation of BH3-only proteins with coordinate down-regulation of their anti-apoptotic counterparts. These findings have immediate implications for the clinical trial design of BH3 mimetic-based therapies that are presently being studied intensively for the treatment of diverse hematopoietic malignancies, including lethal multiple myeloma.