title: P53-independent down-regulation of Mdm2 in human cancer cells treated with adriamycin.
abstract: Mdm2 is a nuclear phosphoprotein which functions as a negative feedback regulator of the p53 tumor suppressor gene. In this study, we investigated the alteration of Mdm2 and p53 in three human cancer cell lines containing either a wild-type or mutant p53 gene after treatment with Adriamycin (doxorubicin, ADR), a DNA damaging agent. We found that human breast cancer MCF-7 cells containing wild-type p53 were much more susceptible to ADR compared to human breast cancer MDA-MB-231 and human prostate cancer Du-145 cells which contain mutant p53. ADR resulted in a significant dose-dependent accumulation of p53 protein in MCF-7 cells, whereas little or no influence was observed on p53 protein of the two mutant p53 cell lines. However, a significant down-regulation of Mdm2 at protein and mRNA levels was observed in these three cell lines following ADR treatment. Moreover, the decrease of Mdm2 was in both a dose- and time-dependent manner. It is interestingly noted that 5 microM is a critical dose for significant down-regulation of the Mdm2 protein. Selected proteasome inhibitors did not rescue the ADR-caused decline in the expression of Mdm2 protein. Therefore, our present results reveal that ADR can induce a down-regulation of Mdm2 via a p53-independent pathway in human cancer cells and the ubiquitin-proteasome degradation mechanism may not be involved in the decreased expression of Mdm2 protein.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, New York, 11042, USA.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: I D
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Rosen
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fan
mesh_terms: D000903:Antibiotics, Antineoplastic / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers; D015536:Down-Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D004317:Doxorubicin / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D051736:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-mdm2; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000903:Antibiotics, Antineoplastic; D017931:DNA Primers; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53; D004317:Doxorubicin; C497206:MDM2 protein, human; D051736:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-mdm2