Prolactin induction of the alpha(2)-macroglobulin gene in rat ovarian granulosa cells: Stat 5 activation and binding to the interleukin-6 response element

alpha(2)-Macroglobulin (alpha 2M) is expressed at high levels in the corpus luteum of pregnant rats in response to PRL and rat placental lactogens. These studies document that PRL induction of alpha 2M mRNA occurs rapidly in granulosa cells differentiated to the preovulatory phenotype in the presence of FSH and steroid, is hormone specific [induced by PRL but not by LH or interleukin-6 (IL-6)], and involves tyrosine kinase activity. To analyze the cellular signaling events stimulated by PRL, transient transfections of granulosa cells and electrophoretic mobility;shift assays were done using the IL-6 response element (IL-6RE) of the alpha 2M promoter. The IL-6RE consists of two gamma-activating like sequences (GAS) that bind the acute phase response factor (APRF/Stat 3) in rat liver and the mammary gland factor (MGF/Stat 5) from mammary tissue. By transfecting various alpha 2M promoter-luciferase reporter transgenes into the granulosa cell cultures, we show that the GAS-like sites together with the minimal -48 base pairs of the alpha 2M promoter can confer PRL inducibility to the luciferase reporter gene. These same GAS-like sequences of the alpha 2M promoter were used to analyze the DNA-binding activity of proteins in whole cell extracts prepared from differentiated granulosa cells exposed to PRL for 0.25, 0.5, 4, and 20 h. PRL rapidly stimulated the binding of a specific protein to labeled alpha 2M GAS-like oligonucleotide, and this PRL-induced binding activity was shown to contain Stat 5 but not Stat 1 or Stat 3, using specific antibodies in the electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Because both Stat 5 and Stat 3 proteins are present in the whole cell extracts of differentiated granulosa cells, PRL appears to activate detectable amounts of Stat 5 (and not Stat 3). Thus, the initial induction of the alpha 2M gene by PRL in differentiated rat granulosa cells involves, at least in part, the activation (tyrosine phosphorylation?) of Stat 5.