Cooperative Regulation of the Mucosal Mast Cell–Specific Protease Genes Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 by GATA and Smad Transcription Factors

Mouse mast cell proteases (mMCP)-1 and -2 are specifically expressed in mucosal mast cells (MCs). However, the transcriptional regulation mechanism of the Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 genes induced in mucosal MCs is largely unknown. In the current study, we found that TGF-beta stimulation drastically induced upregulation of Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 mRNA in mouse bone marrow-derived MCs (BMMCs). TGF-beta-induced expression of Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 was markedly suppressed by transfection with small interfering RNA targeting Smad2 or Smad4 and moderately reduced by Smad3 small interfering RNA. We next examined the roles of the hematopoietic cell-specific transcription factors GATA1 and GATA2 in the expression of Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 and demonstrated that knockdown of GATA1 and GATA2 reduced the mRNA levels of Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 in BMMCs. The recruitment of GATA2 and acetylation of histone H4 of the highly conserved GATA-Smad motifs, which were localized in the distal regions of the Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 genes, were markedly increased by TGF-beta stimulation, whereas the level of GATA2 binding to the proximal GATA motif was not affected by TGF-beta. A reporter assay showed that TGF-beta stimulation upregulated GATA2-mediated transactivation activity in a GATA-Smad motif-dependent manner. We also observed that GATA2 and Smad4 interacted in TGF-beta-stimulated BMMCs via immunoprecipitation and Western blotting analysis. Taken together, these results demonstrate that TGF-beta induced mMCP-1 and -2 expression by accelerating the recruitment of GATA2 to the proximal regions of the Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 genes in mucosal MCs.