Expression of wild-type p53 is not compatible with continued growth of p53-negative tumor cells.
Inactivation of the cellular p53 gene is a common feature of Friend virus-induced murine erythroleukemia cell lines and may represent a necessary step in the progression of this disease. As well, frequent loss or mutation of p53 alleles in diverse human tumors is consistent with the view of p53 as a tumor suppressor gene. To examine the significance of p53 gene inactivation in tumorigenesis, we have attempted to express transfected wild-type p53 in three p53-negative tumor cell lines: murine DP16-1 Friend erythroleukemia cells, human K562 cells, and SKOV-3 cells. We found that aberrant p53 proteins, which differ from wild-type p53 by a single amino acid substitution, were expressed stably in these cells, whereas wild-type p53 expression was not tolerated. The inability of p53-negative tumor cell lines to support long-term expression of wild-type p53 protein is consistent with the view that p53 is a tumor suppressor gene.
Johnson
P
P
Ontario Cancer Institute, University of Toronto, Canada.
Gray
D
D
Mowat
M
M
Benchimol
S
S
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D002455:Cell Division; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics*; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D015870:Gene Expression; D016147:Genes, Tumor Suppressor; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009841:Oligonucleotides; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D014162:Transfection; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D009841:Oligonucleotides; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53