Smad7 transcription is known to be regulated by TGF-beta to form a negative-feedback loop of TGF-beta -mediated biological responses. In this study, we sought to determine whether other signaling cascades, especially mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, might be involved in the transcriptional regulation of Smad7. Hyperosmolarity (500 mOsm/kg H2O) or anisomycin (10 mug/ml) potentiated TGF-beta -induced increases of Smad7 mRNA abundance in normal rat kidney fibroblasts. SB203580 (10 muM) treatment had no effect on basal and TGF-beta -induced Smad7 mRNA abundance, and the overexpression of kinase-negative ATF2 had no effect on Smad7 promoter activity. On the other hand, overexpression of dominant-negative JNK and dominant-negative c-Jun significantly attenuated the TGF-beta -induced increases of Smad7 mRNA abundance and promoter activity, respectively. Mutations of the AP-1 element near the Smad-binding element in the rat Smad7 promoter also completely abolished TGF-beta -induced Smad7 promoter activity. These results suggested that the JNK cascade, not p38 kinase, cooperated with the Small signaling to induce Smad7 transcription through the AP-1 element. Serum treatment (10%) attenuated the TGF-beta -induced Smad7 mRNA increase, and PD98059 (30 muM) treatment increased the basal and TGF-beta -induced Smad7 promoter activity. Gel shift analysis revealed that serum treatment decreased the amount of nuclear Smad complex that PD98059 treatment was shown to restore. These results indicated that ERK activation negatively regulated Smad7 transcription possibly by inhibiting translocation of Smad complex to nuclei. In conclusion, JNK cascade and ERK cascade are important positive and negative regulators of Smad7 transcription, respectively.