TRAIL induces necroptosis involving RIPK1/RIPK3-dependent PARP-1 activation

Although TRAIL (tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis inducing ligand) is a well-known apoptosis inducer, we have previously demonstrated that acidic extracellular pH (pHe) switches TRAIL-induced apoptosis to regulated necrosis (or necroptosis) in human HT29 colon and HepG2 liver cancer cells. Here, we investigated the role of RIPK1 (receptor interacting protein kinase 1), RIPK3 and PARP-1 (poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-1) in TRAIL-induced necroptosis in vitro and in concanavalin A (Con A)-induced murine hepatitis. Pretreatment of HT29 or HepG2 with pharmacological inhibitors of RIPK1 or PARP-1 (Nec-1 or PJ-34, respectively), or transient transfection with siRNAs against RIPK1 or RIPK3, inhibited both TRAIL-induced necroptosis and PARP-1-dependent intracellular ATP depletion demonstrating that RIPK1 and RIPK3 were involved upstream of PARP-1 activation and ATP depletion. In the mouse model of Con A-induced hepatitis, where death of mouse hepatocytes is dependent on TRAIL and NKT (Natural Killer T) cells, PARP-1 activity was positively correlated with liver injury and hepatitis was prevented both by Nec-1 or PJ-34. These data provide new insights into TRAIL-induced necroptosis with PARP-1 being active effector downstream of RIPK1/RIPK3 initiators and suggest that pharmacological inhibitors of RIPKs and PARP-1 could be new treatment options for immune-mediated hepatitis.     

RIPK1- and RIPK3-induced cell death mode is determined by target availability

Both receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) and RIPK3 can signal cell death following death receptor ligation. To study the requirements for RIPK-triggered cell death in the absence of death receptor signaling, we engineered inducible versions of RIPK1 and RIPK3 that can be activated by dimerization with the antibiotic coumermycin. In the absence of TNF or other death ligands, expression and dimerization of RIPK1 was sufficient to cause cell death by caspase- or RIPK3-dependent mechanisms. Dimerized RIPK3 induced cell death by an MLKL-dependent mechanism but, surprisingly, also induced death mediated by FADD, caspase 8 and RIPK1. Catalytically active RIPK3 kinase domains were essential for MLKL-dependent but not for caspase 8-dependent death. When RIPK1 or RIPK3 proteins were dimerized, the mode of cell death was determined by the availability of downstream molecules such as FADD, caspase 8 and MLKL. These observations imply that rather than a ‘switch'' operating between the two modes of cell death, the final mechanism depends on levels of the respective signaling and effector proteins.Mammalian cells can use a number of mechanisms to kill themselves. The best characterized depends on the Bcl-2 family members Bax and Bak that work via mitochondria to activate caspases.¹ Some caspases, notably caspase 8, can be activated independently of Bcl-2 family members, for example, after stimulation of members of the TNF receptor superfamily.² Recently, it has become apparent that some of these receptors, including TNFR1, can activate a third suicide mechanism that does not require caspases, and in which the morphology of the dying cell differs from classical apoptosis. This form of cell death, termed ‘necroptosis'', can often be blocked by necrostatin-1 (nec-1), an inhibitor of the kinase activity of receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1).^{3, 4} Accordingly, observations from several groups have shown that in some cell types, expression of RIPK1 can signal cell death by caspase-independent necroptosis.⁵It has previously been revealed that RIPK1 could function downstream of death receptors, but in those cases, cell death was usually blocked by coexpression of the viral inhibitor of caspases 1 and 8, CrmA,⁶ and typically exhibited a classical ‘apoptotic'' morphology. It was revealed that RIPK1 engages FADD via homotypic binding of their death domains (DDs), and FADD in turn activates caspase 8.^{6, 7}RIPK3, like RIPK1, bears a kinase domain and RIP homology interaction motif (RHIM), but unlike RIPK1 does not have a DD.^{8, 9, 10, 11} RIPK3 is required for necroptosis.^{12, 13} Furthermore, RIPK1 appears to activate RIPK3 in this pathway, as cell death could be blocked by nec-1.¹⁴ RIPK3 activates, by phosphorylation, MLKL, a pseudokinase essential for this death pathway.^{15, 16, 17} Once activated, MLKL forms multimers that trigger breaches of the plasma membrane.^{18, 19, 20}Although RIPK3 is necessary for necroptosis, it is unclear whether activation of RIPK3 is sufficient for cell death, because TNF activates signaling by many pathways in addition to those controlled by RIPK1.²¹ It is also unclear whether RIPK3 can contribute to apoptosis. Despite some reports to this effect,^{8, 9, 22} RIPK3 has been described as the necroptotic ‘switch'', implying its activity precipitates necroptosis to the exclusion of apoptosis.^{23, 24, 25}Here, we have directly activated RIP kinases without the confounding effects of multiple signals emanating from the target cell''s cytokine receptors, allowing us to define more precisely the functions of RIPK1 and RIPK3. We activated RIP kinases by dimerization using inducible lentiviral vectors, each encoding a chimera of a RIP kinase with subunit B of E. coli DNA gyrase.²⁶ We infected mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) that lack genes for, or expression of, various cell death proteins, induced expression of the RIPK chimera, caused its dimerization by addition of the divalent antibiotic coumermycin (C) and quantitated the resulting cell death.Our results reveal that each of RIPK1 and RIPK3 can contribute to both apoptosis and necroptosis depending on the biochemical context. Furthermore, necroptosis can occur in the absence of caspase 8 and FADD, which shows that the ripoptosome, with core components caspase 8, FADD and RIPK1,^{27, 28} is not required for necroptosis. Instead, we propose that dimers of RIPK1 and/or RIPK3 are the pivotal complexes from which both forms of cell death can progress.     

Differential roles of RIPK1 and RIPK3 in TNF-induced necroptosis and chemotherapeutic agent-induced cell death

Apoptosis is a key mechanism for metazoans to eliminate unwanted cells. Resistance to apoptosis is a hallmark of many cancer cells and a major roadblock to traditional chemotherapy. Recent evidence indicates that inhibition of caspase-dependent apoptosis sensitizes many cancer cells to a form of non-apoptotic cell death termed necroptosis. This has led to widespread interest in exploring necroptosis as an alternative strategy for anti-cancer therapy. Here we show that in human colon cancer tissues, the expression of the essential necroptosis adaptors receptor interacting protein kinase (RIPK)1 and RIPK3 is significantly decreased compared with adjacent normal colon tissues. The expression of RIPK1 and RIPK3 was suppressed by hypoxia, but not by epigenetic DNA modification. To explore the role of necroptosis in chemotherapy-induced cell death, we used inhibitors of RIPK1 or RIPK3 kinase activity, and modulated their expression in colon cancer cell lines using short hairpin RNAs. We found that RIPK1 and RIPK3 were largely dispensable for classical chemotherapy-induced cell death. Caspase inhibitor and/or second mitochondria-derived activator of caspase mimetic, which sensitize cells to RIPK1- and RIPK3-dependent necroptosis downstream of tumor necrosis factor receptor-like death receptors, also did not alter the response of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents. In contrast to the RIPKs, we found that cathepsins are partially responsible for doxorubicin or etoposide-induced cell death. Taken together, these results indicate that traditional chemotherapeutic agents are not efficient inducers of necroptosis and that more potent pathway-specific drugs are required to fully harness the power of necroptosis in anti-cancer therapy.Cell death by apoptosis is a natural barrier to cancer development, as it limits uncontrolled proliferation driven by oncogenes.¹ Chemotherapeutic agents that target apoptosis have been successful in anti-cancer therapy. However, cancer cells, especially cancer stem cells, often evolve multiple mechanisms to circumvent growth suppression by apoptosis.² This resistance to apoptosis is a major challenge for many chemotherapeutic agents. Targeting other non-apoptotic cell death pathways is an attractive therapeutic alternative.A growing number of recent studies show that there are distinct genetic programmed cell death modes other than apoptosis.³ Necroptosis is mediated by receptor interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3).⁴ In the presence of caspase inhibition and cellular inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (cIAPs) depletion, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor 1 triggers a signaling reaction that culminates in binding of RIPK3 with its upstream activator RIPK1 through the RIP homotypic interaction motif (RHIM).⁴ RIPK1 and RIPK3 phosphorylation stabilizes this complex and promotes its conversion to an amyloid-like filamentous structure termed the necrosome.⁵ Once activated, RIPK3 recruits its substrate mixed lineage kinase domain-like (MLKL).⁶ Phosphorylated MLKL forms oligomers that translocate to intracellular membranes and the plasma membrane, which eventually leads to membrane rupture.^{7, 8, 9, 10}In addition to phosphorylation, RIPK1 and RIPK3 are also tightly regulated by ubiquitination, a process mediated by the E3 ligases cIAP1, cIAP2, and the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex.¹¹ The ubiquitin chains on RIPK1 act as a scaffold to activate nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways and inhibit formation of the necrosome. As such, depletion of cIAP1/2 by second mitochondria-derived activator of caspase (Smac) mimetics or removal of the ubiquitin chains by the de-ubiquitinating enzyme cylindromatosis (CYLD) promotes necroptosis.^{12, 13, 14, 15} In addition, RIPK1 and RIPK3 are cleaved and inactivated by caspase 8.^{16, 17, 18} Mice deficient for caspase 8 or FADD, an essential adaptor protein of caspase 8, suffer from embryonic lethality due to extensive RIPK1- or RIPK3-dependent necroptosis.^{19, 20, 21} Hence, caspase inhibition and IAP depletion are key priming signals for necroptosis.The physiological functions of RIPK1 and RIPK3 have been extensively investigated in infectious and sterile inflammatory diseases.^{4, 22} By contrast, their roles in cancer cells'' response to chemotherapeutics are poorly understood. Here we show that RIPK1 and RIPK3 expression is significantly decreased in human colon cancer tissues, suggesting that suppression of RIPK1 or RIPK3 expression is advantageous for cancer growth. However, the loss of RIPK1 and RIPK3 expression in colon cancer was not due to epigenetic DNA modification. Interestingly, RIPK1 and RIPK3 expression in colon cancer cells is reduced by hypoxia, a hallmark of solid tumor. We found that chemotherapeutic agents did not effectively elicit RIPK1/RIPK3-dependent necroptosis in colon cancer cells. Moreover, caspase inhibition and Smac mimetics, which are potent sensitizers for necroptosis, also did not enhance chemotherapeutic agent-induced cell death. These results show that traditional chemotherapeutic agents are not strong inducers of classical necroptosis in colon cancers and suggest that development of pathway-specific drugs is needed to harness the power of necroptosis in anti-cancer therapy.     

A toolbox for imaging RIPK1, RIPK3, and MLKL in mouse and human cells

Necroptosis is a lytic, inflammatory cell death pathway that is dysregulated in many human pathologies. The pathway is executed by a core machinery comprising the RIPK1 and RIPK3 kinases, which assemble into necrosomes in the cytoplasm, and the terminal effector pseudokinase, MLKL. RIPK3-mediated phosphorylation of MLKL induces oligomerization and translocation to the plasma membrane where MLKL accumulates as hotspots and perturbs the lipid bilayer to cause death. The precise choreography of events in the pathway, where they occur within cells, and pathway differences between species, are of immense interest. However, they have been poorly characterized due to a dearth of validated antibodies for microscopy studies. Here, we describe a toolbox of antibodies for immunofluorescent detection of the core necroptosis effectors, RIPK1, RIPK3, and MLKL, and their phosphorylated forms, in human and mouse cells. By comparing reactivity with endogenous proteins in wild-type cells and knockout controls in basal and necroptosis-inducing conditions, we characterise the specificity of frequently-used commercial and recently-developed antibodies for detection of necroptosis signaling events. Importantly, our findings demonstrate that not all frequently-used antibodies are suitable for monitoring necroptosis by immunofluorescence microscopy, and methanol- is preferable to paraformaldehyde-fixation for robust detection of specific RIPK1, RIPK3, and MLKL signals.Subject terms: Cell biology, Kinases     

Depletion of RIPK3 or MLKL blocks TNF-driven necroptosis and switches towards a delayed RIPK1 kinase-dependent apoptosis

In human cells, the RIPK1–RIPK3–MLKL–PGAM5–Drp1 axis drives tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced necroptosis through mitochondrial fission, but whether this pathway is conserved among mammals is not known. To answer this question, we analyzed the presence and functionality of the reported necroptotic axis in mice. As in humans, knockdown of receptor-interacting kinase-3 (RIPK3) or mixed lineage kinase domain like (MLKL) blocks TNF-induced necroptosis in L929 fibrosarcoma cells. However, repression of either of these proteins did not protect the cells from death, but instead induced a switch from TNF-induced necroptosis to receptor-interacting kinase-1 (RIPK1) kinase-dependent apoptosis. In addition, although mitochondrial fission also occurs during TNF-induced necroptosis in L929 cells, we found that knockdown of phosphoglycerate mutase 5 (PGAM5) and dynamin 1 like protein (Drp1) did not markedly protect the cells from TNF-induced necroptosis. Depletion of Pink1, a reported interactor of both PGAM5 and Drp1, did not affect TNF-induced necroptosis. These results indicate that in these murine cells mitochondrial fission and Pink1 dependent processes, including Pink-Parkin dependent mitophagy, apparently do not promote necroptosis. Our data demonstrate that the core components of the necrosome (RIPK1, RIPK3 and MLKL) are crucial to induce TNF-dependent necroptosis both in human and in mouse cells, but the associated mechanisms may differ between the two species or cell types.     

RIPK1/RIPK3-Mediated Necroptosis is Involved in Sevoflurane-Induced Neonatal Neurotoxicity in the Rat Hippocampus

Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology - Recent studies have shown that exposure to sevoflurane in developing brains causes neuronal apoptosis and cognitive dysfunction. “Necroptosis” is a...     

Taurine attenuates valproic acid-induced hepatotoxicity via modulation of RIPK1/RIPK3/MLKL-mediated necroptosis signaling in mice

Molecular Biology Reports - Valproic acid (VPA) is known as a common drug in seizure and bipolar disorders treatment. Hepatotoxicity is the most important complication of VPA. Taurine (Tau), an...     

Absence of RIPK3 predicts necroptosis resistance in malignant melanoma

Acquired or intrinsic resistance to apoptotic and necroptotic stimuli is considered a major hindrance of therapeutic success in malignant melanoma. Inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) are important regulators of apoptotic and necroptotic cell death mediated by numerous cell death signalling platforms. In this report we investigated the impact of IAPs for cell death regulation in malignant melanoma. Suppression of IAPs strongly sensitized a panel of melanoma cells to death ligand-induced cell death, which, surprisingly, was largely mediated by apoptosis, as it was completely rescued by addition of caspase inhibitors. Interestingly, the absence of necroptosis signalling correlated with a lack of receptor-interacting protein kinase-3 (RIPK3) mRNA and protein expression in all cell lines, whereas primary melanocytes and cultured nevus cells strongly expressed RIPK3. Reconstitution of RIPK3, but not a RIPK3-kinase dead mutant in a set of melanoma cell lines overcame CD95L/IAP antagonist-induced necroptosis resistance independent of autocrine tumour necrosis factor secretion. Using specific inhibitors, functional studies revealed that RIPK3-mediated mixed-lineage kinase domain-like protein (MLKL) phosphorylation and necroptosis induction critically required receptor-interacting protein kinase-1 signalling. Furthermore, the inhibitor of mutant BRAF Dabrafenib, but not Vemurafenib, inhibited necroptosis in melanoma cells whenever RIPK3 is present. Our data suggest that loss of RIPK3 in melanoma and selective inhibition of the RIPK3/MLKL axis by BRAF inhibitor Dabrafenib, but not Vemurafenib, is critical to protect from necroptosis. Strategies that allow RIPK3 expression may allow unmasking the necroptotic signalling machinery in melanoma and points to reactivation of this pathway as a treatment option for metastatic melanoma.Over the past few years, necroptosis has been established as an alternative programmed form of cell death, contrasting caspase-dependent apoptosis. It is now evident that an ordered activation of the receptor-interacting protein kinases-1 and -3 (RIPK1 and RIPK3), and their downstream substrates is mandatory for the execution of necroptosis.^{1, 2, 3} Under caspase-limited conditions, the necroptotic cell signalling machinery is regulated by RIPK1, with the impact of scaffolding function as compared with kinase function still unclear.^{1, 4, 5, 6} RIPK1 interacts with and either autophosphorylates or transphosphorylates RIPK3 (for review, see Cho et al.,¹ Zhang et al.,² He et al.,³ and Vanden Berghe et al.⁷). When RIPK1 is active, RIPK3 phosphorylation and activation occurs within the assembled Necrosome (for review, see Remijsen et al.⁸) or Ripoptosome.^{4, 9, 10} RIPK3 then phosphorylates the pseudo kinase mixed-lineage kinase domain-like protein (MLKL).¹¹ MLKL in its active form allows its oligomerization, membrane accumulation, and complex formation within cellular membranes of the mitochondria¹² and cell membranes,¹³ and finally results in necroptosis.¹⁴The RIPK1/RIPK3/MLKL signalling network acts as a sensor for genotoxic stress⁹ and also has a key role in necroptosis regulation in keratinocyte skin cancer (SCC).⁴ In these epithelial cancers, cellular inhibitors of apoptosis proteins (cIAPs) block both apoptotic and necroptotic cell death.^{4, 5} Both apoptosis and necroptosis can be increasingly initiated by intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli when IAPs are suppressed by IAP antagonist. Extrinsic apoptosis mediated by activation of death receptors (DRs) such as cluster of differentiation 95 (CD95), TRAILR1/R2 or tumour necrosis factor receptor-1 (TNFR1) through ligation of respective death ligands (DLs) such as CD95L, TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), and TNF initiates apoptosis either by direct activation of the caspase cascade (caspase-8/caspase-3) or via the intrinsic cell death signalling machinery regulated by pro-apoptotic members of the Bcl-2 family followed by caspase-3 activation.¹⁵ Inhibition of caspase-8 within the death-inducing signalling complex or complex II, or within the Ripoptosome can trigger CD95L-mediated,⁵ TRAIL-mediated¹⁶ or TNF-induced necroptosis.^{8, 17} A role for apoptosis resistance, cancer maintenance, and progression is widely assumed (for review, see Obexer et al.¹⁸), but the pathophysiological inhibitory or propagating function of necroptosis has not formally been demonstrated in cancer.Metastatic melanoma has an overall poor prognosis but novel therapeutics have revolutionized clinical practice for different subsets of patients. The use of inhibitors of the V600E- or V600K-mutated proto-oncogene serine/threonine protein kinase B-RAF (e.g., Dabrafenib or Vemurafenib) results in suppression of Ras/Raf/mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways and translate into unfortunately transient clinical responses (for review, see Spagnolo et al.¹⁹). The high recrudescence of metastatic melanoma following the treatment with BRAF inhibitors will potentially require combination therapies that activate additional tumour-inhibitory pathways. Combinations such as BRAF inhibitors with mitogen-activated protein/extracellular signal-regulated kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitors have already yielded impressive results²⁰ and other combination therapies may further improve clinical outcome.²¹ As BRAF inhibitors target the cell death pathway at best in an indirect manner, we reasoned that necroptosis induction could represent a novel option to improve melanoma therapy. Our investigations demonstrate for the first time that loss of RIPK3 during melanoma development is critical for necroptosis protection. Reactivation of the RIPK1/RIPK3/MLKL signalling machinery by RIPK3 reconstitution allows IAP antagonist/DL-mediated necroptosis in the presence of Vemurafenib, but not Dabrafenib. Here, Dabrafenib blocks necroptosis by interference with RIPK3-mediated MLKL phosphorylation. Therefore, strategies that increase RIPK3 expression in combination with Vemurafenib, but not Dabrafenib, likely represent an attractive strategy to overcome cell death resistance in melanoma.     

Cotargeting histone deacetylases and oncogenic BRAF synergistically kills human melanoma cells by necrosis independently of RIPK1 and RIPK3

Past studies have shown that histone deacetylase (HDAC) and mutant BRAF (v-Raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B1) inhibitors synergistically kill melanoma cells with activating mutations in BRAF. However, the mechanism(s) involved remains less understood. Here, we report that combinations of HDAC and BRAF inhibitors kill BRAF^V600E melanoma cells by induction of necrosis. Cotreatment with the HDAC inhibitor suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) or panobinostat (LBH589) and the BRAF inhibitor PLX4720 activated the caspase cascade, but caspases appeared dispensable for killing, in that inhibition of caspases did not invariably block induction of cell death. The majority of dying cells acquired propidium iodide positivity instantly when they became positive for Annexin V, suggesting induction of necrosis. This was supported by caspase-independent release of high-mobility group protein B1, and further consolidated by rupture of the plasma membrane and loss of nuclear and cytoplasmic contents, as manifested by transmission electron microscopic analysis. Of note, neither the necrosis inhibitor necrostatin-1 nor the small interference RNA (siRNA) knockdown of receptor-interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3) inhibited cell death, suggesting that RIPK1 and RIPK3 do not contribute to induction of necrosis by combinations of HDAC and BRAF inhibitors in BRAF^V600E melanoma cells. Significantly, SAHA and the clinically available BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib cooperatively inhibited BRAF^V600E melanoma xenograft growth in a mouse model even when caspase-3 was inhibited. Taken together, these results indicate that cotreatment with HDAC and BRAF inhibitors can bypass canonical cell death pathways to kill melanoma cells, which may be of therapeutic advantage in the treatment of melanoma.     

Human RIPK3 C-lobe phosphorylation is essential for necroptotic signaling

Necroptosis is a caspase-independent, pro-inflammatory mode of programmed cell death which relies on the activation of the terminal effector, MLKL, by the upstream protein kinase RIPK3. To mediate necroptosis, RIPK3 must stably interact with, and phosphorylate the pseudokinase domain of MLKL, although the precise molecular cues that provoke RIPK3 necroptotic signaling are incompletely understood. The recent finding that RIPK3 S227 phosphorylation and the occurrence of a stable RIPK3:MLKL complex in human cells prior to exposure to a necroptosis stimulus raises the possibility that additional, as-yet-unidentified phosphorylation events activate RIPK3 upon initiation of necroptosis signaling. Here, we sought to identify phosphorylation sites of RIPK3 and dissect their regulatory functions. Phosphoproteomics identified 21 phosphorylation sites in HT29 cells overexpressing human RIPK3. By comparing cells expressing wild-type and kinase-inactive D142N RIPK3, autophosphorylation sites and substrates of other cellular kinases were distinguished. Of these 21 phosphosites, mutational analyses identified only pT224 and pS227 as crucial, synergistic sites for stable interaction with MLKL to promote necroptosis, while the recently reported activation loop phosphorylation at S164/T165 negatively regulate the kinase activity of RIPK3. Despite being able to phosphorylate MLKL to a similar or higher extent than wild-type RIPK3, mutation of T224, S227, or the RHIM in RIPK3 attenuated necroptosis. This finding highlights the stable recruitment of human MLKL by RIPK3 to the necrosome as an essential checkpoint in necroptosis signaling, which is independent from and precedes the phosphorylation of MLKL.Subject terms: Kinases, Necroptosis     

Constitutive Interferon Attenuates RIPK1/3-Mediated Cytokine Translation

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Regulation of RIPK3- and RHIM-dependent Necroptosis by the Proteasome

Receptor-interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3) is a serine/threonine kinase with essential function in necroptosis. The activity of RIPK3 is controlled by phosphorylation. Once activated, RIPK3 phosphorylates and activates the downstream effector mixed lineage kinase domain-like (MLKL) to induce necroptosis. In certain situations, RIPK3 has also been shown to promote apoptosis or cytokine expression in a necroptosis and kinase-independent manner. The ubiquitin-proteasome system is the major pathway for selective degradation of cellular proteins and thus has a critical role in many cellular processes such as cell survival and cell death. Clinically, proteasome inhibition has shown promise as an anti-cancer agent. Here we show that the proteasome inhibitors MG132 and bortezomib activate the RIPK3-MLKL necroptotic pathway in mouse fibroblasts as well as human leukemia cells. Unlike necroptosis induced by classical TNF-like cytokines, necroptosis induced by proteasome inhibitors does not require caspase inhibition. However, an intact RIP homotypic interaction motif (RHIM) is essential. Surprisingly, when recruitment of MLKL to RIPK3 is restricted, proteasome inhibitors induced RIPK3-dependent apoptosis. Proteasome inhibition led to accumulation of K48-linked ubiquitinated RIPK3, which was partially reduced when Lys-264 was mutated. Taken together, these results reveal the ubiquitin-proteasome system as a novel regulatory mechanism for RIPK3-dependent necroptosis.     

Necroptosis induced by RIPK3 requires MLKL but not Drp1

Necroptosis is a mechanism by which cells can kill themselves that does not require caspase activity or the presence of the pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members Bax or Bak. It has been reported that RIPK3 (receptor interacting protein kinase 3) activates MLKL (mixed lineage kinase domain-like) to cause cell death that requires dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1), because survival was increased in cells depleted of Drp1 or treated with the Drp1 inhibitor mdivi-1. To analyze necroptosis in a system that does not require addition of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), we used a construct that allows RIPK3 to be induced in cells, and then dimerized via an E. coli gyrase domain fused to its carboxyl-terminus, using the dimeric gyrase binding antibiotic coumermycin. We have previously shown elsewhere that RIPK3 dimerized in this manner not only induces necroptosis but also apoptosis, which can be inhibited by the broad-spectrum caspase inhibitor Q-VD-OPh (QVD). In response to RIPK3 dimerization, wild-type mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) underwent cell death that was reduced but not completely blocked by QVD. In contrast, death upon dimerization of RIPK3 in Mlkl^−/− MEFs was completely inhibited with QVD, confirming that MLKL is required for necroptosis. Similar to wild-type MEFs, most Drp1^−/− MEFs died when RIPK3 was activated, even in the presence of QVD. Furthermore, overexpression of wild-type MLKL or dominant active mutants of MLKL (Q343A or S345E/S347E) caused death of wild-type and Drp1^−/− MEFs that was not inhibited with QVD. These results indicate that necroptosis caused by RIPK3 requires MLKL but not Drp1.