Katerina Gurova

p53 Pathway in Renal Cell Carcinoma Is Repressed by a Dominant Mechanism

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) rarely acquires mutations in p53 tumor suppressor gene, suggesting that p53 signaling in this tumor type might be repressed by some other mechanism. In fact, all four RCC-derived cell lines we tested maintained wild-type p53 but were not capable of transactivating p53-responsive reporters and endogenous p53-responsive genes. p53 protein in RCC showed normal response to genotoxic stress, including accumulation, nuclear translocation, and activation of specific DNA binding. Functional and expression analysis of Mdm2, MdmX, and Arf showed lack of involvement of these p53 regulators in the observed defect of p53 function in RCC. However, activation of p53-mediated transactivation could be achieved by extremely high levels of p53 attained by lentivirus vector-driven transduction, suggesting the involvement of a dominant inhibitor in repression of p53-dependent transactivation in RCC. Consistently, p53 inactivation prevailed in the hybrids of RCC cells with the cells possessing fully functional p53. Remarkably, cells of normal kidney epithelium also caused partial p53 repression in cell fusion experiments, suggesting that RCC-specific p53 repression may be based on an unknown dominant mechanism also acting in normal kidney tissue.

Targeted disruption of the mouse ing1 locus results in reduced body size, hypersensitivity to radiation and elevated incidence of lymphomas

Ing1 belongs to the family of evolutionary conserved genes encoding nuclear PHD finger-containing proteins implicated in a variety of processes, including tumorigenesis, replicative senescence, excision repair and response to genotoxic stress. We have generated mice deficient in all the isoforms of Ing1 by targeted disruption of the exon that is common for all ing1 transcripts. Embryonic fibroblasts from ing1-knockout mice were similar to the wild-type cells in their growth characteristics, replicative lifespan in culture, p53 induction and sensitivity to various cytotoxic treatments with minor alterations in cell cycle distribution in response to genotoxic stress. ing1-deficient animals are characterized by reduced size with no obvious morphological, physiological or behavioral abnormalities, indicating that ing1 function is dispensable for the viability of mice under normal physiological conditions. Loss of ing1 was associated with earlier onset and higher incidence of lymphomas. Consistent with the possible involvement of Ing1 in DNA repair, ing1-deficient mice were more sensitive to total body gamma radiation. Our observations are well in line with the suggested role of ing1 as a candidate tumor suppressor gene involved in control of DNA damage response.

Paradoxical role of apoptosis in tumor progression

Tumors frequently acquire resistance to apoptosis that is expected to contribute to malignant phenotype and reduce sensitivity to treatment. In fact, inactivation of p53 tumor suppressor gene resulting in suppression of apoptosis serves as a negative prognostic marker. Surprisingly, expression of a strong anti‐apoptotic protein Bcl‐2, another mechanism to avoid apoptosis, was found to be associated with a favorable prognosis. This paradoxical anti‐progressor function of Bcl‐2 has been explained in literature based on the negative effect of Bcl‐2 on cell proliferation. Here, by analyzing accumulated experimental and clinical data, we provide evidence supporting another hypothesis that defines apoptosis as an accelerator of tumor progression. The mechanism of anti‐progressor function of Bcl‐2 is based on creation of tumors that maintain control of genomic stability by eliminating selective advantages for the cells that acquire resistance to apoptosis through loss of p53. Thus, inhibition of apoptosis does not lead to loss of genomic stability and creates tumor environment that no longer supports further tumor progression and inhibitors of apoptosis can be considered as factors suppressing tumor progression.

Expression of prostate specific antigen (PSA) is negatively regulated by p53

Although prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is considered a uniquely important tumor marker and is broadly used for early detection of prostate cancer, the molecular mechanisms underlying its elevated expression in tumors have been unknown. By using cDNA microarray gene expression profiling, we found a fourfold increase in the PSA mRNA level in prostatic carcinoma cell line LNCaP, in which the p53 pathway was suppressed by a dominant negative p53 mutant. Consistently, p53 suppression caused a 4–8-fold increase in secretion of PSA protein in culture medium, suggesting that PSA gene expression is under negative control of p53. While wild type p53 strongly repressed, dominant negative p53 mutants stimulated PSA promoter-driven transcription and secretion of PSA in transient transfection experiments. The inhibitory effect of wild type p53 was undetectable in the presence of trychostatin A, suggesting the involvement of histone deacetylation in negative regulation of PSA promoter activity. Thus, PSA is likely to be a tissue specific indicator of transformation-associated p53 suppression in prostate cells. This finding provides a plausible explanation for a frequent increase of PSA levels in advanced prostate cancer.

Apoptosis Inhibitor as a Suppressor of Tumor Progression: Expression of Bcl-2 Eliminates Selective Advantages for p53-Deficient Cells in the Tumor

Inactivation of p53 and expression of Bcl-2, frequently occurring during tumor progression, have different prognostic value: while inactivation of p53 is generally associated with unfavorable prognosis, expression of Bcl-2 often correlates with better clinical outcome and delays selection of metastatic variants of experimental tumors. To analyze the mechanisms underlying the “anti-progression” function of Bcl-2, we engineered tumor cell variants differing in their p53 status and Bcl-2 expression and compared their expansion in experimental tumors. Although neither p53 suppression nor Bcl-2-expression altered cell growth properties in vitro, both variants showed rapid accumulation in growing tumors in vivo, presumably due to their resistance to hypoxia. However, no expansion of p53-deficient variants occurred in the tumors formed by Bcl-2-overexpressing cells, indicating that p53 deficiency has no selective advantages in the Bcl-2-expressing environment. Importantly, expression of Bcl-2, unlike p53 suppression, did not lead to genomic instability as judged by the frequencies of gene amplification. Thus, acquisition of Bcl-2 expression is as advantageous for tumor cell growth in vivo as is p53 inactivation but does not affect genomic stability and creates the environment restrictive for the expansion of genetically unstable and potentially malignant p53-deficient cells, causing a delay in tumor progression and explaining the different prognostic value of Bcl-2 and p53.