At Least Two Genes Encode Many Variants of Irak3 in Rainbow Trout, but Neither the Full-Length Factor Nor Its Variants Interfere Directly With the TLR-Mediated Stimulation of Inflammation

• Published in: Frontiers in Immunology
• Main Authors: Rebl, Alexander, Rebl, Henrike, Verleih, Marieke, Haupt, Stephanie, Köbis, Judith M., Goldammer, Tom, Seyfert, Hans-Martin
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
• Subjects: Immunology; Atlantic salmon
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6763605/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31616422; https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02246

The interleukin-1-receptor-associated kinase 3 (IRAK3) is known in mammals as a negative feedback regulator of NF-κB-mediated innate-immune mechanisms. Our RNA-seq experiments revealed a prototypic 1920-nt sequence encoding irak3 from rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), as well as 20 variants that vary in length and nucleotide composition. Based on the DNA-sequence information from two closely related irak3 genes from rainbow trout and an irak3-sequence fragment from Atlantic salmon retrieved from public databases, we elucidated the underlying genetic causes for this striking irak3 diversity. Infecting rainbow trout with a lethal dose of Aeromonas salmonicida enhanced the expression of all variants in the liver, head kidney, and peripheral blood leucocytes. We analyzed the functional impact of the full-length factor and selected structural variants by overexpressing them in mammalian HEK-293 cells. The full-length factor enhanced the basal activity of NF-κB, but did not dampen the TLR2-signaling-induced levels of NF-κB activation. Increasing the basal NF-κB-activity through Irak3 apparently does not involve its C-terminal domain. However, more severely truncated factors had only a minor impact on the activity of NF-κB. The TLR2-mediated stimulation did not alter the spatial distribution of Irak3 inside the cells. In salmonid CHSE-214 cells, we observed that the Irak3-splice variant that prominently expresses the C-terminal domain significantly quenched the stimulation-dependent production of interleukin-1β and interleukin-8, but not the production of other immune regulators. We conclude that the different gene and splice variants of Irak3 from trout play distinct roles in the activation of immune-regulatory mechanisms.