Heterochromatin silencing of p53 target genes by a small viral protein

Conrado Soria, Fanny E. Estermann, Kristen C. Espantman and Clodagh C. O’Shea ()
Additional contact information
Conrado Soria: Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Fanny E. Estermann: Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Kristen C. Espantman: Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Clodagh C. O’Shea: Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Nature, 2010, vol. 466, issue 7310, 1076-1081

Abstract: Abstract The transcription factor p53 (also known as TP53) guards against tumour and virus replication and is inactivated in almost all cancers. p53-activated transcription of target genes is thought to be synonymous with the stabilization of p53 in response to oncogenes and DNA damage. During adenovirus replication, the degradation of p53 by E1B-55k is considered essential for p53 inactivation, and is the basis for p53-selective viral cancer therapies. Here we reveal a dominant epigenetic mechanism that silences p53-activated transcription, irrespective of p53 phosphorylation and stabilization. We show that another adenoviral protein, E4-ORF3, inactivates p53 independently of E1B-55k by forming a nuclear structure that induces de novo H3K9me3 heterochromatin formation at p53 target promoters, preventing p53–DNA binding. This suppressive nuclear web is highly selective in silencing p53 promoters and operates in the backdrop of global transcriptional changes that drive oncogenic replication. These findings are important for understanding how high levels of wild-type p53 might also be inactivated in cancer as well as the mechanisms that induce aberrant epigenetic silencing of tumour-suppressor loci. Our study changes the longstanding definition of how p53 is inactivated in adenovirus infection and provides key insights that could enable the development of true p53-selective oncolytic viral therapies.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09307 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7310:d:10.1038_nature09307

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature09307

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().