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Biomedical subjects

Laura D Attardi

Publications and source records attributed to Laura D Attardi.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2025

Integrative multiomic approaches reveal ZMAT3 and p21 as conserved hubs in the p53 tumor suppression network.

TP53, the most frequently mutated gene in human cancer, encodes a transcriptional activator that induces myriad downstream target genes. Despite the importance of p53 in tumor suppression, the specific p53 target genes important for tumor suppression remain unclear. Recent studies have identified the p53-inducible gene Zmat3 as a critical effector of tumor suppression, but many questions remain regarding its p53-dependence, activity across contexts, and mechanism of tumor suppression alone and in cooperation with other p53-inducible genes. To address these questions, we used Tuba-seqUltra somatic genome editing and tumor barcoding in a mouse lung adenocarcinoma model, combinatorial in vivo CRISPR/Cas9 screens, meta-analyses of gene expression and Cancer Dependency Map data, and integrative RNA-sequencing and shotgun proteomic analyses. We established Zmat3 as a core component of p53-mediated tumor suppression and identified Cdkn1a as the most potent cooperating p53-induced gene in tumor suppression. We discovered that ZMAT3/CDKN1A serve as near-universal effectors of p53-mediated tumor suppression that regulate cell division, migration, and extracellular matrix organization. Accordingly, combined Zmat3-Cdkn1a inactivation dramatically enhanced cell proliferation and migration compared to controls, akin to p53 inactivation. Together, our findings place ZMAT3 and CDKN1A as hubs of a p53-induced gene program that opposes tumorigenesis across various cellular and genetic contexts.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

The requirement for perp in postnatal viability and epithelial integrity reflects an intrinsic role in stratified epithelia.

Mice lacking the desmosome protein Perp exhibit blistering in their stratified epithelia and display postnatal lethality. However, it is unclear if these phenotypes are strictly related to Perp function in stratified epithelia, as Perp expression is not restricted to these tissues during embryogenesis, and certain desmosomal blistering diseases such as pemphigus vulgaris and pemphigus foliaceus have non-cell-intrinsic bases. Furthermore, we show here that Perp is expressed in the heart, raising the possibility that defects in heart function could account for lethality in the Perp-deficient mice. To determine conclusively if Perp function in stratified epithelia is crucial for postnatal survival and epithelial adhesion, we specifically ablated Perp in stratified epithelia by breeding conditional Perp knockout mice to keratin 5 (K5)-Cre transgenic mice. We found that the majority of mice lacking Perp in stratified epithelia die within 10 days after birth, accompanied by blistering and hyperproliferation in the epithelia, similar to the constitutive Perp null mice. Together, these findings indicate that Perp's requirement for both viability and epithelial integrity reflects a role in the stratified epithelial compartment.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Genome-wide analysis of p53 under hypoxic conditions.

Hypoxia is an important nongenotoxic stress that modulates the tumor suppressor activity of p53 during malignant progression. In this study, we investigated how genotoxic and nongenotoxic stresses regulate p53 association with chromatin, p53 transcriptional activity, and p53-dependent apoptosis. We found that genotoxic and nongenotoxic stresses result in the accumulation and binding of the p53 tumor suppressor protein to the same cognate binding sites in chromatin. However, it is the stress that determines whether downstream signaling is mediated by association with transcriptional coactivators. In contrast to p53 induced by DNA-damaging agents, hypoxia-induced p53 has primarily transrepression activity. Using extensive microarray analysis, we identified families of repressed targets of p53 that are involved in cell signaling, DNA repair, cell cycle control, and differentiation. Following our previous study on the contribution of residues 25 and 26 to p53-dependent hypoxia-induced apoptosis, we found that residues 25-26 and 53-54 and the polyproline- and DNA-binding regions are also required for both gene repression and the induction of apoptosis by p53 during hypoxia. This study defines a new role for residues 53 and 54 of p53 in regulating transrepression and demonstrates that 25-26 and 53-54 work in the same pathway to induce apoptosis through gene repression.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed2005

Probing p53 biological functions through the use of genetically engineered mouse models.

The p53 tumor suppressor gene is rendered dysfunctional in the majority of human cancers. To model the effects of p53 dysfunction in an experimentally manipulable organismal context, genetically engineered inbred mice have been the models of choice. Transgenic and knock-out technologies have been utilized to generate an array of different p53 germ line alterations. As expected, many (though not all) of the mutant p53 mouse models are susceptible to enhanced spontaneous and carcinogen-induced tumors of a variety of types. A number of different variables affect the incidence and spectrum of tumors in p53 mutant mice. These include strain background, the nature of the p53 mutation, the presence of wild-type p53 (in addition to mutant p53), exposure to physical and chemical mutagens, or introduction of other cancer-associated genes into the mutant p53 background. In addition to their role in furthering our understanding of the mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression, these models have led to unexpected insights into p53 function in embryogenesis and aging. With the development of ever more sophisticated methods for manipulating the mouse genome, new p53 models are on the horizon, which should deliver advances that will provide not only important mechanistic insights but also discoveries of great clinical relevance.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Mice lacking the p53/p63 target gene Perp are resistant to papilloma development.

Perp is a target of the p53 tumor suppressor involved in the DNA damage-induced apoptosis pathway. In addition, Perp is a target of the p53-related transcription factor p63 during skin development, where it participates in cell-cell adhesion mediated through desmosomes. Here we test the role of Perp in tumorigenesis in a two-step skin carcinogenesis model system. We find that mice lacking Perp in the skin are resistant to papilloma development, displaying fewer and smaller papillomas than wild-type mice. Proliferation levels, apoptotic indices and differentiation patterns are similar in the skin of treated Perp-deficient and wild-type mice. Instead, impaired adhesion through aberrant desmosome assembly may explain the diminished tumor development in the absence of Perp. These studies indicate that in certain contexts, Perp is required for efficient carcinogenesis and suggest a role for intact cell-cell adhesion in supporting tumor development in these settings.

9,10-Dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene↗
PubMed2005

A new Perp in the lineup: linking p63 and desmosomal adhesion.

The process of stratified epithelial development depends upon a transcriptional program directed by the p53-related transcription factor p63. p63 is required for the commitment of the ectoderm to stratification and for the completion of terminal differentiation in stratified epithelia, and mutations in p63 have been identified in multiple developmental disorders affecting ectoderm-derived tissues. Recent work from our laboratory has determined that the p53 target gene Perp is required for the integrity of the stratified epithelia specified by p63, and that expression of Perp in these structures depends on the presence of p63. In these tissues, Perp is a critical component of the desmosome, a cell-cell adhesion complex whose constituents are frequently mutated in human diseases affecting the skin and hair. Perp's position downstream of p63 and p53, as well as its essential role in normal desmosome function, suggest that it, like other adhesion proteins, may be a target for mutation in human blistering diseases or cancer.

Cell Adhesion↗
PubMed2005

Pathways connecting telomeres and p53 in senescence, apoptosis, and cancer.

The ends of eukaryotic chromosomes are protected by specialized structures termed telomeres that serve in part to prevent the chromosome end from activating a DNA damage response. However, this important function for telomeres in chromosome end protection can be lost as telomeres shorten with cell division in culture or in self-renewing tissues with advancing age. Impaired telomere function leads to induction of a DNA damage response and activation of the tumor suppressor protein p53. p53 serves a critical role in enforcing both senescence and apoptotic responses to dysfunctional telomeres. Loss of p53 creates a permissive environment in which critically short telomeres are inappropriately joined to generate chromosomal end-to-end fusions. These fused chromosomes result in cycles of chromosome fusion-bridge-breakage, which can fuel cancer initiation, especially in epithelial tissues, by facilitating changes in gene copy number.

Aging↗
PubMed2005

p53QS: an old mutant teaches us new tricks.

The p53 protein functions as a tumor suppressor, preventing aberrant cellular proliferation in response to various genotoxic and non-genotoxic stress signals. Although p53's ability to induce apoptosis is critical to its capacity to suppress tumorigenesis, the role of transcriptional activation in p53's apoptotic function has been highly controversial. To address this issue, our laboratory generated a p53 mutant knock-in mouse strain in which residues 25 and 26, previously shown to be critical for p53's transactivation function, were mutated from leucine and tryptophan to glutamine and serine, respectively. Our analysis of cells derived from these mice provided significant insight into p53 activity at both the molecular and cellular level. In particular, our data suggest that p53 utilizes discrete mechanisms to transactivate different target genes, and that p53 employs distinct mechanisms to induce apoptosis in response to different stresses. This p53QS mutant mouse strain represents a powerful means to dissect p53 function in vivo.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Perp is a p63-regulated gene essential for epithelial integrity.

p63 is a master regulator of stratified epithelial development that is both necessary and sufficient for specifying this multifaceted program. We show here that Perp, a tetraspan membrane protein originally identified as an apoptosis-associated target of the p53 tumor suppressor, is the first direct target of p63 clearly involved in mediating this developmental program in vivo. During embryogenesis, Perp is expressed in an epithelial pattern, and its expression depends on p63. Perp-/- mice die postnatally, with dramatic blistering in stratified epithelia symptomatic of compromised adhesion. Perp localizes specifically to desmosomes, adhesion junctions important for tissue integrity, and numerous structural defects in desmosomes are observed in Perp-deficient skin, suggesting a role for Perp in promoting the stable assembly of desmosomal adhesive complexes. These findings demonstrate that Perp is a key effector in the p63 developmental program, playing an essential role in an adhesion subprogram central to epithelial integrity and homeostasis.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

The p53QS transactivation-deficient mutant shows stress-specific apoptotic activity and induces embryonic lethality.

The role of transcriptional activation in p53 function is highly controversial. To define this role in vivo, we generated a Trp53 knock-in construct encoding a protein carrying mutations of two residues that are crucial for transactivation (L25Q,W26S). Here we show that these mutations have selective effects on the biological functions of p53. Although its ability to activate various p53 target genes is largely compromised, the p53(QS) protein retains the ability to transactivate the gene Bax. The ability of the p53(QS) mutant protein to elicit a DNA damage-induced G1 cell cycle-arrest response is also partially impaired. p53(QS) has selective defects in its ability to induce apoptosis: it is completely unable to activate apoptosis in response to DNA damage, is partially unable to do so when subjected to serum deprivation and retains substantial apoptotic activity upon exposure to hypoxia. These findings suggest that p53 acts through distinct, stimulus-specific pathways to induce apoptosis. The importance of the biological activity of p53(QS) in vivo is underscored by our finding that expression of p53(QS), which cannot bind mdm2, induces embryonic lethality. Taken together, these results suggest that p53 has different mechanisms of action depending on specific contextual cues, which may help to clarify the function of p53 in preventing cancer.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

The role of p53-mediated apoptosis as a crucial anti-tumor response to genomic instability: lessons from mouse models.

Genomic instability is a major force driving human cancer development. A cellular safeguard against such genetic destabilization, which can ensue from defects in telomere maintenance, DNA repair, and checkpoint function, is activation of the p53 tumor suppressor protein, which commonly responds to these DNA damage signals by inducing apoptosis. If, however, p53 becomes inactivated, as is typical of many tumors and pre-cancerous lesions, then cells with compromised genome integrity pathways survive inappropriately, and the accrual of oncogenic lesions can fuel the carcinogenic process. Studies of mouse models have been instrumental in providing support for this idea. Mouse knockouts in genes important for telomere function, DNA damage checkpoint activation and DNA repair - both non-homologous end joining and homologous recombination - are prone to the development of genomic instability. As a consequence of these DNA damage signals, p53 becomes activated in cells of these mutant mice, leading to the induction of apoptosis, sometimes at the expense of organismal viability. This apoptotic response can be rescued through crosses to p53-deficient mice, but has dire consequences: mice predisposed to genomic instability and lacking p53 are susceptible to tumorigenesis. Thus p53-mediated apoptosis provides a crucial tumor suppressive mechanism to eliminate cells succumbing to genomic instability.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

The role of apoptosis in cancer development and treatment response.

The inactivation of programmed cell death, or apoptosis, is central to the development of cancer. This disabling of apoptotic responses might be a major contributor both to treatment resistance and to the observation that, in many tumours, apoptosis is not the main mechanism for the death of cancer cells in response to common treatment regimens. Importantly, this suggests that other modes of cell death are involved in the response to therapy.

Apoptosis↗
PubMed2004

Developmental context determines latency of MYC-induced tumorigenesis.

One of the enigmas in tumor biology is that different types of cancers are prevalent in different age groups. One possible explanation is that the ability of a specific oncogene to cause tumorigenesis in a particular cell type depends on epigenetic parameters such as the developmental context. To address this hypothesis, we have used the tetracycline regulatory system to generate transgenic mice in which the expression of a c-MYC human transgene can be conditionally regulated in murine hepatocytes. MYC's ability to induce tumorigenesis was dependent upon developmental context. In embryonic and neonatal mice, MYC overexpression in the liver induced marked cell proliferation and immediate onset of neoplasia. In contrast, in adult mice MYC overexpression induced cell growth and DNA replication without mitotic cell division, and mice succumbed to neoplasia only after a prolonged latency. In adult hepatocytes, MYC activation failed to induce cell division, which was at least in part mediated through the activation of p53. Surprisingly, apoptosis is not a barrier to MYC inducing tumorigenesis. The ability of oncogenes to induce tumorigenesis may be generally restrained by developmentally specific mechanisms. Adult somatic cells have evolved mechanisms to prevent individual oncogenes from initiating cellular growth, DNA replication, and mitotic cellular division alone, thereby preventing any single genetic event from inducing tumorigenesis.

Alleles↗
PubMed2004

Perp-etrating p53-dependent apoptosis.

The induction of apoptosis is a fundamental mechanism by which the p53 transcriptional activator protein suppresses tumor development. Recently, the roles of several p53 target genes in mediating the p53 apoptotic response have been queried through loss-of-function analysis with knockout mouse models. These studies have demonstrated that the p53 targets Noxa, Puma, and Perp play cell type-specific roles in p53-mediated apoptosis. Perp, a tetraspan protein localizing to the plasma membrane, rather than to mitochondria, is a novel type of p53 effector that may stimulate apoptosis through a different mechanism from the BH3-containing proteins Noxa, Puma, and Bax.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Activation of the p53-dependent G1 checkpoint response in mouse embryo fibroblasts depends on the specific DNA damage inducer.

The p53 tumor suppressor protein inhibits proliferation by inducing either cell cycle arrest or apoptosis in response to cellular stresses. Mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEFs) provide a primary cell model system in which to examine both functions of p53. MEFs treated with gamma-rays undergo p53-dependent G1 arrest, while oncogene-expressing MEFs treated with a variety of DNA-damaging agents undergo p53-dependent apoptosis. Although the p53-dependent G1 arrest checkpoint response to gamma-rays in MEFs has been well characterized, the response to other DNA-damaging agents has not. Here, we examine the effects of commonly utilized chemotherapeutics, including doxorubicin, etoposide, and cisplatin, on cell cycle arrest in MEFs, and we define the p53 dependence of these effects. In addition, we examine the response of MEFs to ultraviolet light (UVC), as a representative agent acting by inducing pyrimidine dimers. Although p53 is clearly activated by all the agents examined, as measured by p21 induction, there are surprising differences in the activities of these agents. For example, doxorubicin but not cisplatin can effectively induce a p53-dependent G1 arrest. UVC, in contrast, induces a p53-independent G1 arrest response. Thus, the exact response of cells to DNA damage depends on the specific agent used.

Adenovirus E1A Proteins↗
PubMed2004

Increased sensitivity to UV radiation in mice with a p53 point mutation at Ser389.

Phosphorylation is important for p53 protein stabilization and activation after DNA damage. Serine 389 of p53 is specifically phosphorylated after UV irradiation, whereas gamma radiation activates p53 through a different pathway. To study the in vivo significance of p53 phosphorylation at serine 389, we generated a physiological mouse model in which p53 phosphorylation at serine 389 is abolished by alanine substitution. Homozygous mutant p53.S389A mice are viable and have an apparently normal phenotype. However, cells isolated from these mice are partly compromised in transcriptional activation of p53 target genes and apoptosis after UV irradiation, whereas gamma radiation-induced responses are not affected. Moreover, p53.S389A mice show increased sensitivity to UV-induced skin tumor development, signifying the importance of serine 389 phosphorylation for the tumor-suppressive function of p53.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Perp is a mediator of p53-dependent apoptosis in diverse cell types.

The induction of apoptosis by the p53 protein is critical for its activity as a tumor suppressor. Although it is clear that p53 induces apoptosis at least in part by direct transcriptional activation of target genes, the set of p53 target genes that mediate p53 function in apoptosis in vivo remains to be well defined. The Perp (p53 apoptosis effector related to PMP-22) gene is highly expressed in cells undergoing p53-dependent apoptosis as compared to cells undergoing p53-dependent G1 arrest. Perp is a direct p53 target, and its overexpression is sufficient to induce cell death in fibroblasts, implicating it as an important component of p53 apoptotic function. Here, through the generation of Perp-deficient mice, we analyze the role of Perp in the p53 apoptosis pathway in multiple primary cell types by comparing the cell death responses of Perp null cells to those of wild-type and p53 null cells. These experiments demonstrate the involvement of Perp in p53-mediated cell death in thymocytes and neurons but not in E1A-expressing MEFs, indicating a cell type-specific role for Perp in the p53 cell death pathway. In addition, we show that Perp is not required for proliferation-associated functions of p53. Thus, Perp selectively mediates the p53 apoptotic response, and the requirement for Perp is dictated by cellular context.

Animals↗