Adaptor Protein Lnk Inhibits C-Fms Mediated Macrophage Function

The macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptor (c-Fms) plays an important role in proliferation, differentiation and survival of macrophages and is involved in the regulation of distinct macrophage functions. Interaction with the ligand M-CSF results in activation of the intracellular tyrosine kinase domain and phosphorylation of tyrosine residues, thereby creating binding sites for several molecules containing Src homology 2 (SH2) domains. One such protein is the adaptor Lnk that negatively regulates several hematopoietic cytokine receptors including MPL, EpoR and c-Kit. Lnk belongs to a family of proteins sharing several structural motifs including a SH2 domain and a pleckstrin homology domain. The SH2 domain is known to be essential for its inhibitory effect which can be abolished by the point mutation R392E. In this study, we investigated the ability of Lnk to interact and modulate the function of c-Fms. In order to determine if Lnk can bind to c-Fms, immunoprecipitation was performed with lysates from 293T cells co-transfected with the cDNAs for c-Fms and Lnk. Only after exposure to M-CSF, Lnk bound to c-Fms, and binding was dependent on an intact SH2 domain. To elucidate further if Lnk exhibits biological and functional effects on macrophages, we examined both in-vitro differentiated macrophages derived from the bone marrow and also macrophages harvested from peritoneum from Lnk deleted (KO) and wild type (WT) mice. These cells appeared to be at a similar stage of differentiation because expression levels of myeloid and macrophage surface markers such as F4/80, CD11b and CD11c were the same in both bone marrow-derived and peritoneum-derived macrophages from Lnk KO and WT mice. Clonogenic assays demonstrated that the number of M-CFUs in the bone marrow were elevated in Lnk KO as compared to WT mice. Furthermore, the M-CSF-induced phosphorylation of AKT in these Lnk KO macrophages was increased and prolonged compared to WT macrophages. This was associated with prominent up-regulation of c-Fms in macrophages from Lnk KO mice. We found that Lnk additionally had several functional effects on bone marrow-derived macrophages. Production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was dramatically increased in a M-CSF-dependent manner in Lnk KO macrophages upon stimulation with zymosan. In addition, knock-out of Lnk led to altered cytokine production of macrophages: Stimulation with zymosan caused increased levels of TNFalpha and IL-6 in the KO cells, while bacterial lipoproteins (Pam3CSK4) decreased levels of TNFalpha in KO compared to WT macrophages. Last, Lnk inhibited M-CSF-induced migration of macrophages in the Boyden chamber as Lnk KO macrophages showed a significantly higher migration capacity than WT macrophages. In summary, we show for the first time that Lnk can bind to c-Fms and can blunt the stimulation of M-CSF. Modulation of levels of Lnk in macrophages may provide a unique therapeutic approach to increase innate host defenses.