IFN-α mediates the up-regulation of HLA class I on melanoma cells without switching proteasome to immunoproteasome

Treatment of melanoma cell lines with IFN-gamma induces the switch from proteasome (PS) to immunoproteasome (iPS). This finding has profound implications for the immunobiology of melanoma cells since certain peptides (such as Melan-A(27-35)(mart1)) are cleaved differently by iPS, thus implying a different ability to be presented by HLA class I molecules. IFN-alpha is a cytokine not only produced during infectious diseases, but also used in the treatment of certain cancers. Nevertheless, the effects of IFN-alpha on the switch of PS to iPS are largely unknown. A comparison of the effect of both IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma was thus carried out on melanoma cell lines. RT-PCR showed that mRNA for iPS subunits (i.e. LMP-2, LMP-7 and MECL-1) was detectable both in untreated and IFN-treated melanoma cells. Immunoblotting analysis revealed that while IFN-gamma was able to consistently induce the switch from PS to iPS, IFN-alpha treatment did not, possibly due to post-transcriptional event(s) blocking the expression of iPS-specific subunits. Finally, Melan-A(27-35)(mart1) peptide was found only in the HPLC-MS spectra from both untreated and IFN-alpha-treated cells, but not upon IFN-gamma treatment. Altogether, these data demonstrate that IFN-alpha does not induce the switch from PS to iPS.