Differential Regulation of Chemokines by IL-17 in Colonic Epithelial Cells

The IL-23/IL-17 pathway plays an important role in chronic inflammatory diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease. In inflammatory bowel disease, intestinal epithelial cells are an important source of chemokines that recruit inflammatory cells. We examined the effect of IL-17 on chemokine expression of HT-29 colonic epithelial cells. IL-17 strongly repressed TNF-alpha-stimulated expression of CXCL10, CXCL11, and CCL5, but synergized with TNF-alpha for induction of CXCL8, CXCL1, and CCL20 mRNAs. For CXCL10, IL-17 strongly inhibited promoter activity but had no effect on mRNA stability. In contrast, for CXCL8, IL-17 slightly decreased promoter activity but stabilized its normally unstable mRNA, leading to a net increase in steady-state mRNA abundance. IL-17 synergized with TNF-alpha in transactivating the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and in activating ERK and p38 MAPK. The p38 and ERK pathway inhibitors SB203580 and U0126 reversed the repressive effect of IL-17 on CXCL10 mRNA abundance and promoter activity and also reversed the inductive effect of IL-17 on CXCL8 mRNA, indicating that MAPK signaling mediates both the transcriptional repression of CXCL10 and the stabilization of CXCL8 mRNA by IL-17. The EGFR kinase inhibitor AG1478 partially reversed the effects of IL-17 on CXCL8 and CXCL10 mRNA, demonstrating a role for EGFR in downstream IL-17 signaling. The overall results indicate a positive effect of IL-17 on chemokines that recruit neutrophils (CXCL8 and CXCL1), and Th17 cells (CCL20). In contrast, IL-17 represses expression of CXCL10, CXCL11, and CCR5, three chemokines that selectively recruit Th1 but not other effector T cells. The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 6536-6545.