CD99 signaling is crucial to a diverse range of biological functions including survival and proliferation. CD99 engagement is reported to augment activator protein-1 (AP-1) activity through mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathways in a T-lymphoblastic lymphoma cell line Jurkat and in breast cancer cell lines. In this study, we report that CD99 differentially regulated AP-1 activity in the human myeloma cell line RPMI8226. CD99 was highly expressed and the CD99 engagement led to activation of the MAP kinases, but suppressed AP-1 activity by inducing the expression of basic leucine zipper transcription factor, ATF-like (BATF), a negative regulator of AP-1 in RPMI8226 cells. By contrast, engagement of CD99 enhanced AP-1 activity and did not change the BATF expression in Jurkat cells. CD99 engagement reduced the proliferation of RPMI8226 cells and expression of cyclin 1 and 3. Overall, these results suggest novel CD99 functions in RPMI8226 cells.
Keywords: AP-1; BATF; CD99; MAP kinase; Proliferation.