title: Essential role of PI3-kinase pathway in p53-mediated transcription: Implications in cancer chemotherapy.
abstract: The PI3-kinase pathway is the target of inactivation in achieving better cancer chemotherapy. Here, we report that p53-mediated transcription is inhibited by pharmacological inhibitors and a dominant-negative mutant of PI3-kinase, and this inhibition was relieved by a constitutively active mutant of PI3-kinase. Akt/PKB and mTOR, the downstream effectors of PI3-kinase, were also found to be essential. LY294002 (PI3-kinase inhibitor) pre-treatment altered the post-translational modifications and the sub-cellular localization of p53. Although LY294002 increased the chemosensitivity of cells to low concentrations of adriamycin (adriamycin-low), it protected the cells from cytotoxicity induced by high concentrations of adriamycin (adriamycin-high) in a p53-dependent manner. Further, we found that LY294002 completely abolished the activation of p53 target genes (particularly pro-apoptotic) under adriamycin-high conditions, whereas it only marginally repressed the p53 target genes under adriamycin-low conditions; in fact, it further activated the transcription of NOXA, HRK, APAF1 and CASP5 genes. Thus, the differential effect of PI3-kinase on p53 functions seems to be responsible for the differential regulation of DNA damage-induced cytotoxicity and cell death by PI3-kinase. Our finding becomes relevant in the light of ongoing combination chemotherapy trials with the PI3-kinase pathway inhibitors and underscores the importance of p53 status in the careful formulation of combination chemotherapies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Suvasini
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Somasundaram
mesh_terms: D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003603:Cytotoxins / Q000633:toxicity; D004249:DNA Damage; D004317:Doxorubicin / Q000633:toxicity; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D019869:Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*; D000081082:Phosphoinositide-3 Kinase Inhibitors; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000187:drug effects; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D003603:Cytotoxins; D004317:Doxorubicin; D019869:Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinases; D000081082:Phosphoinositide-3 Kinase Inhibitors; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53