Abstract
Multiple cellular stressors, including activation of the tumour suppressor p53, can stimulate autophagy. Here we show that deletion, depletion or inhibition of p53 can induce autophagy in human, mouse and nematode cells subjected to knockout, knockdown or pharmacological inhibition of p53. Enhanced autophagy improved the survival of p53-deficient cancer cells under conditions of hypoxia and nutrient depletion, allowing them to maintain high ATP levels. Inhibition of p53 led to autophagy in enucleated cells, and cytoplasmic, not nuclear, p53 was able to repress the enhanced autophagy of p53−/− cells. Many different inducers of autophagy (for example, starvation, rapamycin and toxins affecting the endoplasmic reticulum) stimulated proteasome-mediated degradation of p53 through a pathway relying on the E3 ubiquitin ligase HDM2. Inhibition of p53 degradation prevented the activation of autophagy in several cell lines, in response to several distinct stimuli. These results provide evidence of a key signalling pathway that links autophagy to the cancer-associated dysregulation of p53.
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Acknowledgements
We thank N. Mizushima for GFP–LC3-transgenic mice, Levine and B. Vogelstein for cell lines, J. Chipuk, C. G. Maki, M. Oren and K. Vousden for mutant p53 plasmids, E. Zaharioudaki, B. Gardie-Capdeville, C. Ladrou, M.R. Duchen, A. Jalil, F. Fanelli and A. Petrini for expert assistance. The cep-1(gk138) mutant strain (TJ1) was provided by the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center, which is funded by the NIH National Center for Research Resources (NCRR). N.T. is funded by EMBO and the EU Sixth Framework Programme. F.C. is funded by Fondazione Telethon, AIRC, Compagnia di San Paolo and the Italian Ministry of Health. E.T. is a recipient of a PhD fellowship from Institut National contre le Cancer (INCa). G.K. is supported by Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer, Agence Nationale pour la Recherche, Cancéropôle Ile-de-France, INCa, Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, and European Union (Active p53, Apo-Sys, ApopTrain, ChemoRes, TransDeath, RIGHT).
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E.T., M.C.M., L.G. and I.V. conducted experiments, prepared figures and analysed data; M.D.-M., M.D.'A., A.C., E.M., C.Z., F.H., U.N., C.S., P.P., J.M.V, R.C., F.M., P.P.B, G.S., G.P., K.B., N.T., P.C. and F.C. performed experiments; E.T. and G.K. planned the project; G.K. supervised the project and wrote the manuscript.
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Tasdemir, E., Maiuri, M., Galluzzi, L. et al. Regulation of autophagy by cytoplasmic p53. Nat Cell Biol 10, 676–687 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1730
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1730
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