Intracellular MMP3 Promotes HSP Gene Expression in Collaboration With Chromobox Proteins

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are crucial factors in tumor progression, inflammatory/immune responses and tissue development/regeneration. Of note, it has been known that MMPs promote genome instability, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, invasion, and metastasis in tumor progression. We previously reported that human MMP3 could translocate into cellular nuclei and control transcription in human chondrosarcoma-derived cells and in articular cartilage (Eguchi et al. [2008] Mol Cell Biol 28(7):2391–2413); however, further transcriptional target genes and cofactors of intranuclear MMP3 have not been uncovered. In this paper, we used transcriptomics analysis in order to examine novel transcriptional target genes regulated by intracellular MMP3. We found that mRNA levels of HSP family members (HSP70B′, HSP72, HSP40/DNAJ, and HSP20/CRYAB) are upregulated by the intracellular MMP3 overload. Bioinformatic analysis predicted several transcription factors that possibly interact with MMP3. Among these factors, heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) cooperated with the MMP3 to activate the HSP70B′ gene promoter in reporter gene assays, while a dominant negative HSF1 blocked the role for MMP3 in the trans-activation. The hemopexin-like repeat (PEX) domain of the human MMP3 was essential for transcriptional induction of the HSP70B′ gene. In addition, chromobox proteins CBX5/HP1α and CBX3/HP1γ cooperated with the PEX domain in induction of HSP70B′ mRNA. Taken together, this study newly clarified that intracellular MMP3 cooperate with CBXs/HP1s in transcriptional promotion of HSP genes. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 43–51, 2017.