Pre-existing levels of pro-survival proteins and induction of BCL-XL dictate cell fate after p53 activation
Huang, A. S.; Lieschke, E.; Baldoni, P. L.; Thomas, A. F.; Marchingo, J. M.; Whelan, L.; Khuu, G.; Marca, E. L.; Milevskiy, M.; Ross, A. M.; Johanson, T.; Potts, M.; Gibson, L.; Vaibhav, V.; Dagley, L.; Balihodcik, A.; Dengler, M.; Liu, Z.; Li, K.; Smyth, G. K.; Kelly, G.; Strasser, A.
Show abstract
TP53 (also called TRP53 or p53) is a critical tumour suppressor that prevents cancer development by inducing a transcriptional program which can lead to diverse cellular responses, most prominently, cell proliferation arrest/senescence with survival of cells or cell death by apoptosis. Why distinct cell types undergo different outcomes after p53 activation remains unclear. Using integrated RNA-sequencing, proteomic and functional analyses across a diverse range of murine primary cell types, we demonstrate that cell fate is governed by the balance between pro-survival BCL-2 and pro-apoptotic BH3-only proteins. Cells resistant to apoptosis displays a higher starting ratio of pro-survival BCL-2 to pro-apoptotic BH3-only proteins, along with transcriptional upregulation of the pro-survival gene Bcl2l1, encoding BCL-XL. This control of cell fate is also seen in human wild-type p53 cancer cell lines. These findings reveal the mechanism for understanding p53-driven cell fate decisions, suggest therapeutic strategies to shift p53-induced cell proliferation arrest/senescence toward apoptotic cell death and allowed generation of an RNAseq data-based predictor of outcome for cancer cells after p53 activation.
Matching journals
The top 11 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.