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Molecular Biology, Pathobiology, and Genetics |
1 Institute of Immunology and National Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, P.R. China and 2 Institute of Immunology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, P.R. China
Requests for reprints: Xuetao Cao, Institute of Immunology and National Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Road, Shanghai 200433, P.R. China. Phone: 86-21-5562-0605; Fax: 86-21-6538-2502; E-mail: caoxt{at}public3.sta.net.cn.
| Abstract |
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(TNF-
) and ionizing irradiation. The PH domain of LAPF and the transactivation domain of p53 mediated the interaction between both molecules. Phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) could translocate to lysosomes before lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP) in LAPF-initiated and TNF-induced apoptosis. Silencing of LAPF expression abrogated lysosomal translocation of phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18), whereas silencing of p53 expression had no effect on lysosomal translocation of LAPF. Similar to that of LAPF silencing, silencing of endogenous p53 expression in L929 cells could significantly impair TNF-
–induced LMP and apoptosis. However, reexpression of wild-type p53, p53S15D (substitution of Ser15 to Asp that mimics a phosphorylated state), and p53R175H (a transcription-deficient mutant) in p53-knockdown L929 cells could rescue the decrease in TNF-induced apoptosis. The data suggest that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) might translocate to lysosome via forming complexes with adaptor protein LAPF and subsequently result in LMP and apoptosis, which might be in a transcription-independent manner. [Cancer Res 2007;67(23):11176–85] | Introduction |
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Most of organelles, including mitochondria, lysosomes, endoplasmic reticulum, and the Golgi apparatus, participate in the regulation of apoptotic cell death. p53 can launch mitochondrial membrane permeabilization through either increasing the expression of proapoptotic proteins in a transcription-dependent manner or directly targeting mitochondria in a transcription-independent manner. Intriguingly, p53 is also functionally associated with lysosomes and may be located at the upstream of lysosomes in the apoptotic pathway. It had been shown that overexpression of p53 protein in M1 mouse myeloid leukemic cells could trigger lysosomal destabilization and result in apoptosis via a lysosomal-mitochondrial pathway (12). The cytokine IL-6, which could abrogate p53-induced apoptosis, also inhibited p53-triggered lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP), suggesting that LMP is important for p53 to perform its apoptotic activity (12–14). Moreover, a lysosomal cathepsin, cathepsin D, is indispensable to p53-dependent apoptosis in lymphoid cells, which has been attributed to increasing p53-regulated protein synthesis (15). SIMPLE, a p53-regulated lysosomal membrane protein, might also participate in p53-dependent apoptosis (16). However, the mechanism of lysosomal destabilization triggered by p53 is far from being understood.
We recently identified the novel protein LAPF (lysosome-associated and apoptosis-inducing protein containing PH and FYVE domains), which is the representative of a new protein family, the Phafins (protein containing both PH and FYVE domains). LAPF could induce caspase-independent apoptosis via translocation to lysosomes and subsequently triggering a lysosomal-mitochondrial pathway (17). In this study, we showed that LAPF, as an adaptor protein, could specifically interact with phosphorylated p53 at Ser15 (corresponding to Ser18 in murine p53), which could be enhanced by apoptotic stimuli, such as tumor necrosis factor-
(TNF-
). Furthermore, phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) could translocate to lysosomes preceding LMP, which could be abrogated by silencing of LAPF expression, and silencing of either p53 or LAPF expression could impair TNF-
–induced lysosomal destabilization and apoptosis, suggesting that adaptor protein LAPF might recruit phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) to lysosomes to trigger LMP. Reexpression of p53wt, p53S15D (mimicking a phosphorylated state of Ser15), and p53R175H (a transcription-deficient mutant) in p53-knockdown L929 cells could rescue the decrease in TNF-induced apoptosis. These findings provided a clue for potential transcription-independent proapoptotic activity of p53.
| Materials and Methods |
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PH (lacking N-terminal PH domain, amino acids 141–297), LAPF
FY (lacking C-terminal FYVE domain, amino acids 1–140), PH (amino acids 39–133), FYVE (amino acids 147–211), CND (C terminal without domains, amino acids 211–279), and Flag-tagged expression mutants of hp53, including transactivation domain (TAD; amino acids 1–100), DNA-binding domain (DBD; amino acids 101–300), 301 to 393 (amino acids 301–393), 1 to 300 (amino acids 1–300), 101 to 393 (amino acids 101–393), and p53R175H (arg175 mutated to his) were generated by PCR mutation reactions and confirmed by DNA sequencing. Cell culture and cell transfection. MCF-7 (human mammary carcinoma), L929 (mouse fibrosarcoma), and H1299 (human non–small cell lung carcinoma) cells were purchased from American Type Culture Collection and cultured in a 37°C incubator with 5% CO2 in DMEM with 10% fetal bovine serum. Cell transfection was performed using Lipofectamine 2000 reagent (Invitrogen) in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. To obtain stable expression cell lines, L929 cells transfected with hLAPF or pcDNA3.1/myc-His(–)B (mock) vector (Invitrogen) were selected by G418 (Calbiochem) as described previously and designated as L929-hLAPF and L929-mock, respectively (17). High expression levels of LAPF in L929-hLAPF cells were confirmed by Western blot (17).
Protein binding assay. The full-length cDNA of LAPF was inserted into pGEX-2T (Amersham Biosciences). The soluble glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion protein GST-hLAPF was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified by glutathione Sepharose chromatography as described previously (18, 19). For GST pull-down assay, 100 µg purified GST-hLAPF or GST protein alone was incubated with 60 µL glutathione Sepharose 4B (Pierce) at 4°C for 2 h and then incubated with cell extracts that lysed in ice-cold lysis buffer (Cell Signaling Technology) containing proteinase inhibitors (Sigma) and 0.1% Triton X-100 for another 4 h. For immunoprecipitation, GST-LAPF proteins were preincubated with cell lysate for 4 h. Then phosphorylated p53 (Ser15; 16G8) monoclonal antibody (2 µg/mL, Cell Signaling Technology) and protein G agarose (Pierce) were added, and precipitation was performed 6 h later. The precipitates were subjected to Western blot analysis.
For in vivo coprecipitation, cells transfected with indicated plasmids were harvested 48 h after transfection and solublized in lysis buffer supplemented with proteinase inhibitors and 0.1% Triton X-100. Lysates (200 µg total proteins) were incubated with 60 µL Ni-NTA beads (Qiagen) for 8 h (20). Alternatively, the lysates were incubated with phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) monoclonal antibody or anti-Flag M2 monoclonal antibody (Sigma), and the complexes were pulled down by immobilized protein G agarose. All binding assays were performed at 4°C. The precipitants were then separated by 12% SDS-PAGE, transferred onto nitrocellulose membranes, and subjected to Western blot analysis.
Antibody preparation and Western blot. The rabbit polyclonal anti-LAPF antibody was prepared as described previously (17). For Western blot, cells were lysed and protein concentration was determined by bicinchoninic acid protein assay (Pierce). Cell lysates (60 µg) were separated by SDS-PAGE gels and transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. The membranes were probed with the following primary antibodies: anti-p53 monoclonal antibody (DO-1; Santa Cruz), phosphorylated p53 (Ser6, Ser9, Ser15, Ser20, Ser33, Ser37, Ser46) rabbit polyclonal antibody (Cell Signaling Technology), anti-Flag antibody, anti-His (H-3) antibody (Santa Cruz), and anti-actin (C-11) antibody (Santa Cruz). Immunoblots were developed using Supersignal West Femto Maximum Sensitivity substrate (Pierce) after incubation with horseradish peroxidase–conjugated secondary antibodies (Cell Signaling Technology).
Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy. Cells were processed for immunofluorescence as described previously (21). Cells grown on glass coverslips were stained with 200 nmol/L Lyso Tracker Red (Invitrogen) for 15 min at 37°C. After washing with PBS thrice, cells were fixed with 4% polyformaldehyde for 20 min at room temperature and permeabilized with 0.2% Triton X-100 in PBS. Cells were then incubated with appropriate primary antibody and secondary antibodies conjugated with fluorescent dyes and observed under fluorescence confocal microscope (LSM confocal microscope, Carl Zeiss). For the staining of phosphorylated p53 (Ser15), primary phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) antibody and FITC-labeled antimouse secondary antibody (Invitrogen) were used for green fluorescence, whereas biotinylated secondary antimouse antibodies (Cell Signaling Technology) and avidin–Texas Red conjugate (Invitrogen) were used for red fluorescence staining. For the staining of LAPF, anti-LAPF antibody and FITC-labeled antirabbit secondary antibody (Invitrogen) were used.
Apoptosis assay. Cells were treated with hTNF-
(R&D Systems) for indicated time and stained with Annexin V/PI (Invitrogen) and then analyzed by flow cytometry as described previously (17). The percentage of viable and death cells were determined from 10,000 cells per sample.
Lysosomal stability assay. Lyso Tracker Red uptake assay was used to assess permeabilization of lysosomal membrane and performed as described previously (17).
Isolation of cytoplasm and nuclei proteins. The isolation of the cytoplasmic and nuclear protein fractions was performed using NE-PER Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Extraction Reagents (Pierce) according to manufacturer's instructions.
Isolation of lysosomes. The purification of lysosomes from cells in a self-generated gradient of Optiprep (Axis-Shield) was performed according to manufacturer's instructions. Optiprep is based on a density gradient compound, Iodixanol, which has been used for isolation of lysosomes from other organelles (22). The purity of the isolated lysosomes was verified by biochemical analysis and Western blot analysis immediately after the isolation. The results showed that actin (cytoplasm marker) and nuc p65 (nuclear marker) could hardly be detected by Western blot analysis, and the specific activities of cytochrome c oxidase (mitochondria marker), glucose-6-phosphatase (ER marker), and catalyse (peroxisome marker) could not be detected by biochemical analysis. The integrity of the isolated lysosomes was verified by the specific activity of β-hexosaminidase (23) and by the detection of LAMP-1 by Western blot analysis.
RNA interference. The small interfering RNA (siRNA) vector of mouse p53 (mp53) was purchased from Imgenex. The plasmid was transfected into L929 cells and selected with 600 to 1,000 ng/mL G418 for 2 to 3 weeks. The inhibition of mp53 expression in L929-mp53i cells was confirmed by Western blot. The LAPF RNA interference cells (L929-LAPFi) and the nonspecific RNA interference control cells (L929-ctrli) were constructed as described previously (17).
Statistical analysis. Statistical analysis (Student's t test) was performed using the computer program SPSS version 6.1.
| Results |
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To show the physical interaction between LAPF and p53 in vitro, lysates of human MCF-7 and mouse L929 cells, which contained endogenous wild-type hp53 and mp53, respectively, were incubated with purified GST-hLAPF proteins in GST pull-down assay. The results revealed that LAPF specifically bound to phosphorylated hp53 (Ser15) or phosphorylated mp53 (Ser18, corresponded to Ser15 in hp53), but not phosphorylated p53 (Ser20; Fig. 1A ). Contrariwise, GST-hLAPF was detected in the immunoprecipitants obtained with phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) monoclonal antibody (Fig. 1A).
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TNF-
promotes the phosphorylation of p53 (Ser15/18) and the interaction of phosphorylated p53 with LAPF. It had been established that overexpression of LAPF not only induced apoptosis of L929 cells but also increased cell sensitivity to TNF-
cytotoxicity (17). We then investigated the effect of TNF-
on the interaction of p53 and LAPF. After TNF stimulation, p53 phosphorylation occurred at 4 h and became significant at 6 to 8 h in L929 cells. Phosphorylation of p38 was also detected after TNF stimulation, almost at the same manner as that of p53 (Ser15/18; Fig. 2A
). Besides, p38 inhibitor (SB203580, 10 µmol/L) treatment could abrogate the phosphorylation of p53 (Ser15/18) at a large extent (Fig. 2A). Thus, TNF-
could increase the phosphorylation of p53, which might involve the activation of p38. GST pull-down assay was then performed to determine the interaction of p53 and LAPF after TNF stimulation. The results showed the physical interaction of both molecules was significantly increased 12 h after TNF treatment (Fig. 2B). The endogenous LAPF interacting with p53 (Ser15/18) was also increased 6 to 12 h after TNF treatment (Fig. 2B). This interaction was further confirmed by confocal analysis in L929 cells. The merged signal of endogenous LAPF (green) and p53 (Ser15/18; red) increased, largely at the cytosol, at 6 h and became significant at 12 h after TNF treatment (Fig. 2C). Besides, we also examined whether other apoptotic stimuli, such as ionizing irradiation, affect the interaction of p53 and LAPF. As shown in Fig. 2D, the phosphorylation level of p53 at Ser15/18, as well as the p53 (Ser15/18) interacting with GST-LAPF, increased after 4 h of ionizing irradiation in MCF-7 cells. Therefore, apoptotic stimuli, such as TNF-
and ionizing irradiation, could increase the interaction between p53 (Ser15/18) and LAPF.
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PH, LAPF
FY, PH, FYVE, and CND, were tagged with 6His and transfected into MCF-7 cells harboring wild-type hp53, respectively (Fig. 3A
). The complexes were coprecipitated with Ni-NTA beads from cell extracts and detected with phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) antibody by Western Blot analysis. As shown in Fig. 3A, both the PH mutant and LAPF
FY mutant that contained PH domain were sufficient to bind with phosphorylated p53 (Ser15). In contrast, mutants without PH domain, including LAPF
PH, FYVE, and CND, failed to interact with phosphorylated p53 (Ser15), although these mutants were expressed at high levels (Fig. 3A). These data suggested that LAPF could interact with phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) via its PH domain.
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Because LAPF could specifically bind to p53 phosphorylated at Ser15/18, we were interested in whether phosphorylation of Ser15 was essential to the interaction between p53 and LAPF. Two site-directed mutants, p53S15A (substitution of Ser15 to Ala, a Ser15 phosphorylation–negative mutation) and p53S15D (substitution of Ser15 to Asp that is a negatively charged amino acid and mimics a phosphorylated state) were used. Notably, the interaction between p53 and LAPF was significantly inhibited when Ser15 was substituted to Ala (Fig. 3C). Another mutant, p53S15D, interacted with LAPF similar to wild-type p53. Ser46 was another important phosphorylation site which might regulate the apoptosis-inducing activity of p53. However, substitution of Ser46 to Ala (a nonphosphorylatable amino acid) had no effect on the interaction between p53 and LAPF (data not shown). These data suggested that phosphorylation of Ser15 might be important for the p53-LAPF interaction.
Phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) translocates to lysosomes before permeabilization of lysosomal membrane. We had selected a subclone of L929-hLAPF cells stably expressing LAPF protein at a high level, whereas the expression of LAPF in parental L929 cells was low (17). Several studies reported that 50 ng/mL TNF-
efficiently elicited apoptotic morphologic change of L929 and 10 ng/mL TNF-
failed to trigger apoptosis but significantly reduced cell growth rate (24). As shown in Fig. 4A (left)
, exposure to 10 ng/mL hTNF-
resulted in apoptotic cell death of L929-hLAPF cells determined by Annexin V/PI staining, whereas no significant apoptosis was detected in L929 cells transfected with control vectors (L929-mock) and parental L929 cells.
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–induced apoptosis via initiating permeabilization of lysosomal membrane (17). LMP was detected within 12 h in hTNF-
–treated L929-hLAPF cells, as evidenced by an increased number of "pale cells" (cells with reduced numbers of Lyso Tracker–accumulating lysosomes), and might be an early event to trigger downstream apoptotic pathway (Fig. 4A, right). It has been shown that LAPF translocates to lysosomes during apoptosis, and the colocalization of LAPF and lysosomes increases in parallel with the progress of cell demise (17). Because phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) interacted with LAPF, phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) might also translocate to cytoplasmic organelles, such as lysosomes. We then isolated the cytoplasmic and nuclear fractions from L929 cells stimulated with hTNF-
. The interaction between p53 (Ser15/18) and LAPF could be detected in both fractions. Particularly, in cytoplasmic fraction, the p53 (Ser15/18) interacting with endogenous LAPF was increased at 6 h after TNF treatment, whereas in nuclear fraction no change was detected even after 24 h of TNF treatment (Fig. 4B). Further analysis by confocal immunofluorescence revealed that the green signal of phosphorylated mp53 (Ser18) began to accumulate to cytosol in L929 cells at 6 h after 50 ng/mL hTNF-
treatment and seemed as a dotted pattern, which coincided partially with the red one of lysosomes (Fig. 4C). To confirm the translocation of phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) to lysosomes, lysosomal fractions of cells stimulated with hTNF-
were isolated using OptiPrep gradient centrifugation. Western blot analysis revealed that the presence of both phosphorylated mp53 (Ser18) and LAPF was first detected in lysosomes isolated from L929-hLAPF cells at 6 h, which was earlier than the occurrence of LMP, and became obvious at 12 h after TNF treatment (Fig. 4D). Accordingly, in nonlysosomal cytoplasmic fractions, the decrease of both protein levels in L929-hLAPF cells was significant at 12 h after TNF treatment, which is more rapid than that in L929-mock cells (Supplementary Fig. S1). Therefore, these data indicated that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) translocated to lysosomes before LMP during apoptosis.
Silencing of p53 impairs hTNF-
–induced LMP and apoptosis. Despite of the existence of multiple death signaling pathways, a lysosome-mediated pathway had been found to play an important role in a typical apoptotic model, the L929 cells stimulated with 50 ng/mL TNF-
(24). In our experimental system, 50 ng/mL hTNF-
actually induced apoptotic cell death of L929 cells, concomitant with lysosomal membrane destabilization (Fig. 5A
). Moreover, both LAPF and phosphorylated mp53 (Ser18), which were detected via immunofluorescent staining using anti-LAPF and phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) antibodies, respectively, mainly accumulated to lysosomes 12 h after 50 ng/mL hTNF-
treatment (Fig. 5B). We have also shown that apoptosis and LMP induced by 50 ng/mL hTNF-
were significantly inhibited in stable mLAPF-silenced L929 cells (L929-mLAPFi) in which mLAPF was almost undetectable (17). Taken together, it was suggested that LAPF might initiate lysosomal-mitochondrial pathway in this typical apoptotic model and phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) might be functionally correlated to this apoptotic pathway.
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, we examined the functional consequences of RNA interference of endogenous mp53. L929 cells were transfected with vectors containing an mp53-specific RNA interference sequence or a nonspecific control sequence and selected with G418 for stable RNA interference. As shown in Supplementary Fig. S2, the expression of endogenous mp53 proteins were significantly inhibited in stable mp53-silenced cells (L929-mp53i) compared with L929-ctrli cells, and TNF stimulation could hardly affect the mp53 protein levels in L929-mp53i cells. As expected, hTNF-
–initiated apoptosis was markedly inhibited in L929-mp53i cells compared with that in L929-ctrli cells and parental L929 cells (Fig. 5A, left). Similarly, hTNF-
–triggered LMP was also significantly attenuated after the expression of mp53 was silenced (Fig. 5A, right). These data indicated that p53 might be indispensable to hTNF-
–induced LMP, which in turn resulted in apoptosis.
LAPF may act as an adaptor protein for phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18). It had been shown that both LAPF and phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) translocated to lysosomes during apoptosis, and silenced expression of these two proteins both led to the inhibition of TNF-
–induced LMP and apoptosis, suggesting that the complex of LAPF and phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) may be responsible for LMP (17). To explore the exact molecular mechanism for LMP triggering, we used two RNA interference cells, L929-mp53i and L929-mLAPFi cells, and examined whether silencing of one protein could influence the subcellular localization of the other protein (Supplementary Fig. S2; ref. 17). As shown in Fig. 5B, the translocation of phosphorylated mp53 (Ser18) to lysosomes was almost abrogated in L929-mLAPFi cells after hTNF-
stimulation, indicating that LAPF may be essential to the lysosomal localization of phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18). However, LAPF retained the capability of translocating to lysosomes in L929-mp53i cells after hTNF-
exposure (Fig. 5B). It could be speculated that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) might contribute to hTNF-
–induced LMP, and LAPF might act as an adaptor protein to recruit phosphorylated p53 (Ser15/18) to lysosomes.
To confirm the effect of p53 (Ser15/18) on TNF-induced LMP and apoptosis, siRNA rescue assay was performed. L929-mp53i cells were transfected with p53wt, p53S15A, or p53S15D mutants. The result revealed that reexpression of p53wt and p53S15D that mimics the phosphorylated state in mp53-knockdown L929 cells could rescue the decrease in TNF-induced apoptosis (Fig. 5C). However, the reexpression of p53S15A, which is deficient in phosphorylation state of Ser15, could not rescue the decrease in TNF-induced apoptosis in L929-mp53i cells. The data further indicated the vital role of Ser15 of p53 in TNF-induced apoptosis.
We further examined how much of other circumstances that are more typically thought of as p53-dependent occurs via LAPF. L929-mLAPFi cells were treated with typical p53-dependent apoptotic stimuli, the DNA damaging drugs, 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin, and p53 transfection, and then analyzed for apoptosis by Annexin V/PI staining. The results showed that DNA damaging drugs and p53 transfection–induced cell death was significantly inhibited in L929-mLAPFi cells, compared with that in L929-ctrli and parental L929 cells (Supplementary Fig. S3). Therefore, it seems that the p53-dependent cell death might be, at least to a large extent, involved in a LAPF-dependent pathway.
LAPF-initiated and TNF-induced apoptosis is transcription independent. It has been shown that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) directly targets to lysosomes via interacting with LAPF and results in LMP and apoptosis in LAPF-initiated and TNF-induced apoptosis. To further confirm whether phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) exerted its apoptotic function independent of transcriptional activity, a transcription-deficient mutant, p53R175H, was used in the siRNA rescue assay. The inhibition of hTNF-
–initiated apoptosis in L929-mp53i cells was efficiently rescued by the reexpression of p53R175H, although deficient in transcription activity (Fig. 6
). Besides, endogenous expression of p21waf1 and Bax, two major p53-regulated genes, remained unchanged during apoptosis (data not shown). These data suggested that LAPF-initiated and TNF-induced apoptosis was independent of p53 transcriptional activity.
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| Discussion |
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It has been well established that p53 activity is regulated by multiple posttranslational modifications, including phosphorylation and acetylation, under normal physiologic conditions (25). Phosphorylation plays a central role in regulating the stabilization and activity of p53 (26). It had been shown that substitution of all six N-terminal Ser to Ala significantly reduced the ability of p53 to induce apoptosis, and mutations in Ser15 and Ser20 were primarily responsible for this impairment, indicating the importance of Ser15 phosphorylation (27, 28). Phosphorylation of Ser15 could reduce the ability of p53 to bind to its negative regulator Mdm2, thus impaired Mdm2-mediated degradation of p53 and resulted in stabilization of p53 (29). Interaction of p53 and Mdm2 had been mapped to the first 19 to 26 residues of p53. Ser15 was adjacent to this region, and its phosphorylation affected the p53-Mdm2 interaction (30). On the other hand, Ser15 phosphorylation stimulated the binding of p53 with some transcriptional coactivators, such as p300/CBP, TATA box–binding protein, and TATA box–binding protein–associated factors, which were required for transactivation of p53-regulated genes (31–33). In contrast to this opinion, other direct evidence had shown that mutation of Ser15 did not affect the ability of p53 to specifically bind to DNA and to transactivate different promoters, indicating the existence of a transcription-independent pathway (27, 34). These conflicting data were most likely due to the different experiment conditions and cell lines used by different authors. In this study, we present a possible transcription-independent pathway that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) performs its apoptotic activity through directly targeting to lysosomes and resulting in LMP.
In our previous work, we reported that a novel proapoptotic protein LAPF could translocate to lysosomes and initiated LMP, ultimately leading to apoptosis through lysosomal-mitochondrial pathway (17, 27, 34). LAPF was predicted as an adaptor protein because it contained two binding domains, namely, PH and FYVE domain, both lacking catalytic activity. It could thus be postulated that LAPF might recruit potential proteins to lysosomes to trigger LMP. In this study, some evidence supported the functional link between phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) and LMP. First, only lysosome-targeting protein LAPF specifically bound to phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) but not to other phosphorylated forms of p53 (data not shown). The mutation of Ser15 could impair the interaction of p53 with LAPF. Secondly, the translocation of phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) to lysosomes preceded LMP in the course of apoptosis. Finally, silencing of endogenous p53 inhibited TNF-
–induced LMP, and silencing of LAPF expression abrogated the lysosomal translocation of phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) concomitant with LMP inhibition. Collectively, these data bring forward a possibility that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) may be responsible for LMP via accumulating to lysosomes in this apoptotic cell model. Further investigations are needed to confirm the effect of p53 on the permeabilization of lysosomal membrane, such as directly targeting p53 to lysosomes by fusion of p53 with a lysosomal import leader peptide.
Interestingly, a number of observations have shown that p53 can translocate to mitochondria and induce permeabilization of the outer mitochondrial membrane by forming complexes with Bcl-XL and Bcl-2 proteins (9). Directly targeting p53 to mitochondria using import leader fusions was sufficient to trigger mitochondrial membrane permeabilization and apoptosis, confirming the transcription-independent activity of p53 on mitochondria (3). Atractyloside, which could open mitochondrial permeability transition to allow the release of proapoptotic proteins from mitochondria, could induce the release of cathepsins from isolated lysosomes (35). Moreover, Bcl-2 protein, which suppressed cellular apoptosis by regulating mitochondrial permeability transition pores, could effectively prevent the later lysosomal destabilization and, expectably, apoptosis (36, 37). These data strongly suggested that lysosomes shared a similar pore opening mechanism to mitochondria, thereby supporting our speculation that lysosomal membrane stabilization was similarly susceptible to p53.
However, conflicting data was reported by another study, which showed that several chemotherapy drugs could induce LMP independent of p53 activity (38). These drugs elicited significant apoptosis in p53-null HCT116 cells, although they could up-regulate the protein level of p53 in p53 wild-type cells (38). The exact mechanisms of induction of LMP by these compounds remain unknown and are likely to be reversed. Normally, there are multiple apoptotic signal transduction pathways that cooperate to trigger cell death. Organelles, including mitochondria and lysosomes, could sense numerous apoptotic signals and undergo apoptotic alteration. So we speculated that the p53-activated pathway was just one of various mechanisms leading to LMP and might have no cross-talk with the pathway induced by these drugs.
In summary, we reported that phosphorylated p53 (Ser15) could translocate to lysosomes, possibly escorted by a lysosome-localized adaptor protein, LAPF, resulting in permeabilization of lysosomal membranes and transcription-independent apoptosis. These findings provided a new insight into the transcription-independent functions of p53. Further studies are needed to elucidate the exact mechanism of LMP triggered by phosphorylated p53 (Ser15).
| Acknowledgments |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
We thank Prof. Moshe Oren (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) for providing the p53 S15A, p53 S15D, and p53 wild-type vectors.
| Footnotes |
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N. Li, Y. Zheng, and W. Chen contributed equally to this work.
Received 6/22/07. Revised 8/31/07. Accepted 9/27/07.
| References |
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-induced apoptosis by inhibiting mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway activation and phosphatidylethanolamine externalization. J Biol Chem 2004;279:45855–64.
, not by etoposide, in L929 fibrosarcoma cells: evidence for an active role of cathepsin D. Biol Chem 2002;383:1237–48.[CrossRef][Medline]
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