Activation of mitogen‐activated protein kinase is involved in sphingosine 1‐phosphate‐stimulated interleukin‐6 synthesis in osteoblasts

We previously showed that sphingosine 1-phosphate (SPP) acts as a second messenger for tumor necrosis factor alpha-induced interleukin-6 (IL-6) synthesis in osteoblast-like MC3T3-E1 cells. In the present study, we further investigated the mechanism of IL-6 synthesis induced by SPP in MC3T3-E1 cells. SPP significantly induced p42/p44 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase activity. PD98059, an inhibitor of MAP kinase kinase, suppressed SPP-induced IL-6 synthesis as well as SPP-induced MAP kinase activation. The patterns of both inhibitions were similar. TMB-8, an inhibitor of Ca2+ mobilization from intracellular Ca2+ stores, significantly suppressed the SPP-induced IL-6 synthesis. These results strongly suggest that SPP-induced IL-6 synthesis is mediated via p42/p44 MAP kinase activation in osteoblast-like cells and that the SPP-induced IL-6 synthesis is dependent on intracellular Ca2+ mobilization.