Failure of gelsolin overexpression to regulate lymphocyte apoptosis

The actin regulatory protein gelsolin cleaves actin filaments in a calcium- and polyphosphoinositide-dependent manner. Gelsolin has recently been described as a novel substrate of the cysteinyl protease caspase-3, an effector protease activated during apoptosis. Cleavage by caspase-3 generates an amino-terminal fragment of gelsolin that can sever actin filaments independently of calcium regulation. The disruption of the actin cytoskeleton by cleaved gelsolin is hypothesized to mediate many of the downstream morphological changes associated with apoptosis. In contrast, overexpression of full-length gelsolin has also been reported to inhibit apoptotic cell death upstream of the activation of caspase-3, suggesting that gelsolin may also act prior to commitment to cell death. The authors previously observed that actin stabilization by the cell permeant agent jasplakinolide enhanced cell death upon interleukin (IL)-2 or IL-3 withdrawal from growth-factor–dependent lymphocyte cell lines, and hypothesized that actin polymerization could alter the activity of gelsolin, thus enhancing apoptosis. Here the authors show that constitutive overexpression of gelsolin did not, however, inhibit or dramatically enhance apoptotic cell death upon growth-factor withdrawal, nor did it modify sensitivity to jasplakinolide. In contrast to previous reports, overexpression of gelsolin in Jurkat T cells did not prevent or delay apoptosis induced by Fas ligation or ceramide treatment. Overexpressed gelsolin protein was cleaved during apoptosis, as seen previously in this and other cell types. In these model systems, therefore, the level of gelsolin expression was not a rate-limiting determinant in commitment to or time to the morphological changes of apoptosis.