PubMed ID

21980358

UMMS Affiliation

Department of Medicine, Division of Endocronology and Metabolism; Department of Cancer Biology; Department of Psychiatry

Date

9-27-2011

Document Type

Article

Subjects

Animals; Cell Cycle Proteins; Cell Proliferation; DNA-Binding Proteins; Female; Fibroblasts; *Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Germ-Line Mutation; Humans; Male; Mice; Mice, Transgenic; Models, Genetic; Mutation; Phosphorylation; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases; Tumor Suppressor Protein p53; Tumor Suppressor Proteins

Disciplines

Cancer Biology | Cell and Developmental Biology | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences

Abstract

Phosphorylation at murine Serine 18 (human Serine 15) is a critical regulatory process for the tumor suppressor function of p53. p53Ser18 residue is a substrate for ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) and ATM-related (ATR) protein kinases. Studies of mice with a germ-line mutation that replaces Ser18 with Ala (p53(S18A) mice) have demonstrated that loss of phosphorylation of p53Ser18 leads to the development of tumors, including lymphomas, fibrosarcomas, leukemia and leiomyosarcomas. The predominant lymphoma is B-cell lymphoma, which is in contrast to the lymphomas observed in Atm(-/-) animals. This observation and the fact that multiple kinases phosphorylate p53Ser18 suggest Atm-independent tumor suppressive functions of p53Ser18. Therefore, in order to examine p53Ser18 function in relationship to ATM, we analyzed the lifespan and tumorigenesis of mice with combined mutations in p53Ser18 and Atm. Surprisingly, we observed no cooperation in survival and tumorigenesis in compound p53(S18A) and Atm(-/-) animals. However, we observed embryonic lethality in the compound mutant animals. In addition, the homozygous p53Ser18 mutant allele impacted the weight of Atm(-/-) animals. These studies examine the genetic interaction of p53Ser18 and Atm in vivo. Furthermore, these studies demonstrate a role of p53Ser18 in regulating embryonic survival and motor coordination.

Comments

Citation: Armata HL, Shroff P, Garlick DE, Penta K, Tapper AR, et al. (2011) Loss of p53 Ser18 and Atm Results in Embryonic Lethality without Cooperation in Tumorigenesis. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24813. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024813. Link to article on publisher's site

Copyright: © 2011 Armata et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed