[Amino acids 395-416 in DNA binding domain of STAT4 is involved in IL-12-induced nuclear import of STAT4].

The purpose of the present study is to explore the mechanism of IL-12-induced nuclear import of signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 (STAT4). Assayed by analyses of homology alignment of STATs, amino acids 395-416 in DNA binding domain was found to be a potential dimer-specific nuclear localization signal (dsNLS) of STAT4. Therefore, several plasmids were constructed. Wild-type STAT4 was inserted into the SalI and BamHI sites of pEGFP-C1 for the construction of plasmid pEGFP-STAT4. The DNA fragment of STAT4 with the deletion of amino acids 395-416 was amplified by RCR and introduced into the SalI and BamHI sites of pEGFP-C1 which was named pEGFP-STAT4-Del. Classic NLS DNA sequence of SV40 T antigen was inserted into the XhoI and HindIII sites of pEGFP-C1. This plasmid was named as pEGFP-NLS and used as a positive control. Plasmid pEGFP-NLS-STAT4-Del was constructed by inserting STAT4-Del into SalI and BamHI sites of pEGFP-NLS. These plasmids were transiently transfected into Caski cells, respectively. The results showed that, after these transfected cells were stimulated by IL-12, wild type STAT4 existed in the cytoplasm at 0 min, and was predominantly localized to the nucleus at 45 min, and distributed in both cytoplasm and nucleus at 60 min, suggesting that STAT4 translocates from cytoplasm into nucleus and finally re-entries into the cytoplasm during the stimulation of IL-12. However, deletion mutant of STAT4 was arrested in cytoplasm during the IL-12 stimulation. Leptomycin B, which specifically blocks protein export from nucleus into cytoplasm, was used to further demonstrate whether STAT4-Del is transferred into nucleus even with stimulation of IL-12. After the transfected cells were pre-treated by leptomycin B, the wild type STAT4 was mainly localized in nucleus after the IL-12 stimulation, suggesting that STAT4 was translocated from cytoplasm into nucleus by the stimulation of IL-12. On the other hand, the deletion mutant of STAT4 distributed in cytoplasm throughout, implying that the mutant STAT4 lacking of amino acids 395-416 cannot move into nucleus. Furthermore, the insertion of classic NLS into EGFP-STAT4-Del restored nuclear import of STAT4-Del. These results suggest the amino acids 395-416 is a dsNLS mediating IL-12-stimulated nuclear import of activated STAT4.