Negative cross-talk between the human orphan nuclear receptor Nur77/NAK-1/TR3 and nuclear factor-κB

The effect of orphan nuclear receptor Nur77 overexpression on activation of an interleukin-2 (IL-2) promoter–luciferase construct was analyzed in the human leukemic cell line Jurkat. Cotransfection of the IL-2 promoter construct together with the Nur77 expression plasmid resulted in a significant repression of IL-2 promoter activation compared to control cells. The repression by Nur77 requires the N-terminal activation function-1 domain. The repressive effect of Nur77 on IL-2 promoter activation is mediated through inhibition of the transcription factor complex nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), since blocking or alteration of the IL-2 NF-κB binding sites resulted in abrogation of the repressive effect of Nur77. Moreover, further examination of a reporter gene construct containing multiple copies of the IL-2 CD28 response element (CD28RE) showed that Nur77 can inhibit transactivation mediated by the NF-κB components p65 and c-Rel. However, no effect of Nur77 was seen on p65-mediated transactivation of a construct containing multiple NF-κB binding sites of the HIV LTR. Our data suggest that Nur77 is able to block activation through NF-κB when bound to low-affinity NF-κB binding sites, such as those located in the IL-2 promoter.