Dibutyryl cyclic AMP (
dbcAMP) and
retinoic acid (RA) have been demonstrated to be the inducers of morphological differentiation in SH-SY5Y cells, a human catecholaminergic
neuroblastoma cell line. However, it remains unclear whether morphologically differentiated SH-SY5Y cells by these compounds acquire catecholaminergic properties. We focused on the alteration of
tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression and intracellular content of
noradrenaline (NA) as the indicators of functional differentiation. Three days treatment with
dbcAMP (1mM) and RA (10microM) induced morphological changes and an increase of TH-positive cells using immunocytochemical analysis in SH-SY5Y cells. The percentage of TH-expressing cells in
dbcAMP (1mM) treatment was larger than that in RA (10microM) treatment. In addition,
dbcAMP increased intracellular NA content, whereas RA did not. The
dbcAMP-induced increase in TH-expressing cells is partially inhibited by
KT5720, a
protein kinase A (
PKA) inhibitor. We also investigated the effect of
butyrate on SH-SY5Y cells, because
dbcAMP is enzymatically degraded by intracellular
esterase, thereby resulting in the formation of
butyrate.
Butyrate induced the increase of NA content at lower concentrations than
dbcAMP, although the increase in TH-expressing cells by
butyrate was smaller than that by
dbcAMP. The
dbcAMP (1mM)- and
butyrate (0.3mM)-induced increase in NA content was completely suppressed by
alpha-methyl-p-tyrosine (1mM), an inhibitor of TH. These results suggest that
dbcAMP induces differentiation into the noradrenergic phenotype through both PKA activation and
butyrate.