Dominant suppressor genes of p53-induced apoptosis in Drosophila melanogaster

Apoptosis, the programmed cell death, is responsible for the removal of cells seriously damaged or unwanted in development. A major function of apoptosis is the removal of cells which suffered oncogenic mutations, thereby preventing cancerous transformation. By making use of the DEP transposon, a P element derivative made in our laboratory, we made an insertional mutagenesis screen in Drosophila melanogaster to identify genes which, when overexpressed, suppress the p53-activated apoptosis. The DEP element has Gal4-activatable, outward-directed UAS-promoters at both ends which can be deleted separately in vivo. In the DEP insertion mutants, we used the GMR-Gal4 driver to induce transcription from both UAS-promoters and tested the suppression effect on the apoptotic rough eye phenotype generated by an activated UAS-p53 transgene. By DEP insertions, seven genes were identified which suppressed the p53-induced apoptosis. In four mutants, the suppression effect was resulted by single genes activated by one UAS-promoter (Pka-R2, Rga, crol, Spt5). In the other three (Orct2, Polr2M, stg), deleting either UAS-promoter eliminated the suppression effect. In qPCR experiments we found that the genes in the vicinity of the DEP insertion also showed an elevated expression level. This suggested an additive effect of the nearby genes on suppressing apoptosis. In the eucaryotic genomes there are co-expressed gene clusters. Three of the DEP insertion mutants are included and two are in close vicinity of separate co-expressed gene clusters. This raises the possibility that the activity of some of the genes in these clusters may help the suppression of the apoptotic cell death.