Disruption of the nucleolus mediates stabilization of p53 in response to DNA damage and other stresses
2003; Springer Nature; Volume: 22; Issue: 22 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/emboj/cdg579
ISSN1460-2075
Autores Tópico(s)Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
ResumoArticle17 November 2003free access Disruption of the nucleolus mediates stabilization of p53 in response to DNA damage and other stresses Carlos P. Rubbi Corresponding Author Carlos P. Rubbi YCR P53 Research Group, Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK Search for more papers by this author Jo Milner Jo Milner YCR P53 Research Group, Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK Search for more papers by this author Carlos P. Rubbi Corresponding Author Carlos P. Rubbi YCR P53 Research Group, Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK Search for more papers by this author Jo Milner Jo Milner YCR P53 Research Group, Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK Search for more papers by this author Author Information Carlos P. Rubbi 1 and Jo Milner1 1YCR P53 Research Group, Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] The EMBO Journal (2003)22:6068-6077https://doi.org/10.1093/emboj/cdg579 PDFDownload PDF of article text and main figures. ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyWechatReddit Figures & Info p53 protects against cancer through its capacity to induce cell cycle arrest or apoptosis under a large variety of cellular stresses. It is not known how such diversity of signals can be integrated by a single molecule. However, the literature reveals that a common denominator in all p53-inducing stresses is nucleolar disruption. We thus postulated that the impairment of nucleolar function might stabilize p53 by preventing its degradation. Using micropore irradiation, we demonstrate that large amounts of nuclear DNA damage fail to stabilize p53 unless the nucleolus is also disrupted. Forcing nucleolar disruption by anti-upstream binding factor (UBF) microinjection (in the absence of DNA damage) also causes p53 stabilization. We propose that the nucleolus is a stress sensor responsible for maintenance of low levels of p53, which are automatically elevated as soon as nucleolar function is impaired in response to stress. Our model integrates all known p53-inducing agents and also explains cell cycle-related variations in p53 levels which correlate with established phases of nucleolar assembly/disassembly through the cell cycle. Introduction p53 acts as a tumour suppressor through its capacity to induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in response to a variety of cellular stresses (reviewed in Levine, 1997). These properties are exploited in anti-cancer therapy, mainly by triggering a p53 response through genotoxic stress (Weinstein et al., 1997). However, more than 20 years after the discovery of the protein, the mechanism of induction of a p53 response still remains unresolved. A p53 response typically involves stabilizing the short-lived protein and unlocking its capacity to transactivate cell cycle arrest and apoptosis genes (Levine, 1997). In normal cell growth conditions, p53 protein levels are kept low by the action of the Mdm2 protein which targets p53 for proteasomal degradation (Ljungman, 2000). Activation of p53 usually involves some form of disruption of its interaction with Mdm2, and it has been shown that co-compartmentalization of both proteins is essential for p53 degradation (Xirodimas et al., 2001). The main puzzle, however, resides in the variety of cellular stresses that can stabilize p53, which include DNA damage in the form of both adducts and strand breaks, transcription inhibition, depletion of nucleotide pools, oncogene expression, viral infection and heat shock (Ljungman, 2000; Pluquet and Hainaut, 2001). Many of these stresses induce covalent modifications of the p53 protein, which have been proposed as induction mechanisms, but these vary from one stimulus to another, making it difficult to understand how p53 can integrate such a wide range of stimuli. Importantly, recent studies strongly argue against allosteric modifications as activators of p53 as a transcription factor and suggest that it is the elevation of nuclear p53 levels that causes transcriptional activation (Blattner et al., 1999; Meek, 1999; Kaeser and Iggo, 2002). Neither is it clear what the stress sensors are or whether p53 senses stresses directly. There is strong evidence that the p53 response to UV irradiation and DNA adducts is mediated by inhibition of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription, and in fact it can be induced by RNA Pol II inhibitors (Ljungman et al., 1999), but it is not clear how the transcription inhibition signal is translated into a p53 response. Finally, no p53 stabilization model can explain the cell cycle-dependent variation of p53 levels which are raised in early G1 but remain low for the rest of the cell cycle (see for example David-Pfeuty, 1999). Mdm2 mediates proteasomal degradation of p53. While initially thought to provide both the leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES) and the ubiquitylation responsible for p53 export and degradation, respectively (Tao and Levine, 1999), later evidence indicated that a more likely mechanism is an initial C-terminal monoubiquitylation of p53 by Mdm2 which in turn exposes the C-terminal leucine-rich NES of p53 (Stommel et al., 1999; Boyd et al., 2000). Probably the best characterized p53 activation pathway is that employed by oncogene expression and some viral infections, which involves expression of the ARF gene product (Sherr and Weber, 2000). When induced, p14ARF in humans (p19ARF in mouse) disrupts the interaction between p53 and Mdm2 and sequesters the latter to the nucleolus (Tao and Levine, 1999; Sherr and Weber, 2000). Two non-mutually exclusive mechanisms have been proposed for this effect: nucleolar sequestration of Mdm2, and blockage of a postulated nucleolar route of p53 export for cytoplasmic degradation (Tao and Levine, 1999; Sherr and Weber, 2000). This latter mechanism, based on the participation of the nucleolus in the export of macromolecular complexes, was described by Sherr and Weber (2000) as p53–Mdm2 complexes ‘riding the ribosome’. Several lines of evidence support a nucleolar export model for p53 degradation. Marechal et al. (1994) demonstrated the simultaneous association of the ribosomal protein L5 with both Mdm2 and Mdm2–p53. The same group went on to demonstrate that nucleo-cytoplasmic shuttling of Mdm2 uses the same pathway as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) Rev protein (Roth et al., 1998) which also displays nucleolar localization, and suggested that Mdm2 export may rely on its capacity to bind to the L5 protein, since L5 participates in the export of the HIV Rev protein (see Schatz et al., 1998; and references therein). Importantly, both p53 and Rev utilize CRM1 for their export, which is also employed by 40S and 60S ribosomal subunits and is specifically inhibited by leptomycin B (LMB; Freedman and Levine, 1998; Thomas and Kutay, 2003). In addition, p53 can be covalently linked to 5.8S rRNA, and it has been shown that cytoplasmic p53 is associated with a subset of ribosomes in which 5.8S rRNA is covalently linked to protein (Samad and Carroll, 1991; Fontoura et al., 1992, 1997). In spite of all these observations, lack of evidence for p53 in the nucleolus prevented acceptance of the model of Mdm2–p53 complexes ‘riding the ribosome’, even though nucleolar levels of p53 in transit should be expected to be very low. However, for cells grown under normal conditions, we have reported recently that following permeabilization, where most soluble nucleoplasmic p53 is eliminated, nuclear-bound p53 is readily detectable in the nucleoli (Rubbi and Milner, 2003). Klibanov et al. (2001) subsequently have demonstrated accumulation of nucleolar p53 after proteasome inhibition. From these findings, we explored whether the nucleolar export model of p53 could be extended to explain the induction of a p53 response under a variety of cell stresses. The strongest evidence yet for this extension of the model comes from the observations of Pestov et al. (2001) on the nucleolar protein Bop1, implicated in pre-rRNA processing and assembly of ribosomal subunits. When a dominant-negative Bop1 mutant was introduced into cells, it interfered with nucleolar function, inducing p53 stabilization and a p53-dependent cell cycle arrest in G1 (Pestov et al., 2001). While the authors proposed that some sort of stress sensor might monitor nucleolar function and respond to its impairment by inducing a p53 response, the links between p53 and nucleolar components mentioned above suggest to us that a simpler explanation is that it is nucleolar function itself that is required for proper degradation of p53, without the need to invoke an intermediary stress sensor. We base our proposition on the fact that a common denominator of all p53-inducing stresses, some of which are summarized in Table I, is that they all cause nucleolar disruption and compromise nucleolar function. The nucleolus is thus a sensor responsive to a wide range of cellular stresses. Under these nucleolus-disrupting stresses, p14ARF appears to be dispensable since ARF-null cells can mount a normal p53 response (Stott et al., 1998). Therefore, we now postulate that the model of nucleolar export of Mdm2–p53 complexes proposed for the explanation of p14ARF induction of p53 (see above) can be extended to explain p53 induction by a wide range of cellular stresses, all of which cause disruption of nucleolar organization. In Table I, two agents, LMB and the proteasome inhibitor MG132, have been listed separately since they can induce p53 without apparent nucleolar disruption. In the nucleolar export model, these two agents act precisely downstream of nucleolar disruption and are thus the only p53-stabilizing agents which are not expected to compromise nucleolar function. Table 1. Comparison of nucleolar-disrupting activity of various agents and their p53 activation capability Agent Nucleolar disruption Reference p53 stabilization Reference UV ✓ Zatsepina et al. (1989) ✓ Pluquet and Hainaut (2001) Cis-Pt ✓ Jordan and Carmo-Fonseca (1998) ✓ Pluquet and Hainaut (2001) 5-FU ✓ Ghoshal and Jacob (1994) ✓ Pritchard et al. (1997) DRB ✓ David-Pfeuty et al. (2001) ✓ David-Pfeuty et al. (2001) Actinomycin D ✓ Haaf and Ward (1996) ✓ Andera and Wasylyk (1997) α-Amanitin ✓ Haaf and Ward (1996) ✓ Andera and Wasylyk (1997) Camptothecin ✓ Buckwalter et al. (1996) ✓ Ljungman (2000) NTP depletion ✓ Grummt and Grummt (1976) ✓ Linke et al. (1996) Bleomycin ✓ Vazquez-Nin et al. (1979) ✓ Pluquet and Hainaut (2001) Heat shock ✓ Y.Liu et al. (1996) ✓ Ljungman (2000) Hypoxia ✓ Yung et al. (1991) ✓ Graeber et al. (1994) LMB – – ✓ Freedman and Levine (1998) MG132 – – ✓ Klibanov et al. (2001) The correlation between impairment of nucleolar function and p53 stabilization can be extended further: mammalian cells lose their nucleoli during mitosis, and full nucleolar functionality, in the form of the maximum level of rRNA synthesis, is not achieved until late in G1 phase (Klein and Grummt, 1999). This period of recovery of nucleolar functionality is precisely the window in which p53 levels are increased during the cell cycle (David-Pfeuty, 1999; see scheme in Figure 5A). Thus, nucleolar disruption is a unifying model that can explain the cell cycle-dependent variation in p53 levels. Moreover, agents that arrest cells in mitosis (e.g. nocodazole) induce a p53 response (Pluquet and Hainaut, 2001) and at the same time prevent nucleolar reformation. A series of elegant experiments by David-Pfeuty (1999) and David-Pfeuty et al. (2001) demonstrated a correlation between inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinases, nucleolar fragmentation and p53 accumulation. Intriguingly, nucleolar disruption by 5,6-dichloro-1-β-D-ribofuranosylbenzimidazole (DRB; a casein kinase II inhibitor) could be impaired by overexpression of p21 (David-Pfeuty et al., 2001). Transfectants with higher p21 expression levels were more resistant to DRB-induced nucleolar disruption and, for the majority of cells reported (as is apparent in figure 8 in David-Pfeuty et al., 2001), it is clearly noticeable that cells with low p21 levels (high nucleolar disruption) showed high levels of p53 induction by DRB treatment, and vice versa. In the absence of p21 overexpression, DRB induces a rapid and massive p53 stabilization in all cells (David-Pfeuty et al., 2001; and see Figure 1H, this work). Since high p21 cells were refractory to both nucleolar disruption and p53 induction by DRB, the nucleolar disruption model appears to offer a better explanation for p53 induction by DRB than RNA Pol II inhibition (Ljungman et al., 1999). Figure 1.Nucleolar disruption is independent of p53. (A–G′) Single confocal sections of nuclei of NDFs (A–G) and 041 cells (A′–G′) stained for fibrillarin, 6 h after treatment with each indicated agent. Each image corresponds to a single nucleus. (A″–G″′) wide field images of NDFs (A″–G″) and 041 cells (A″′–G″′) stained for NPM after the same treatments. A pseudo-colour scale (indicated) was applied to each image to highlight all intensity ranges. (H) Dual plot of nuclear p53 expression level (DO-1 staining) and NPM translocation index for NDFs treated for 6 h with the indicated agents. Download figure Download PowerPoint Thus, a solid bibliographic background supports the nucleolar export model of p53 degradation. In the present work, we aimed to test the validity of the model under three conditions. First, we ensured, for a representative group of p53-inducing stresses, that nucleolar disruption occurs in the absence of p53, thus rejecting the possibility that the correlation might be due to p53 blocking, for example, rRNA synthesis (Cairns and White, 1998; Budde and Grummt, 1999; Zhai and Comai, 2000) and causing the nucleolar disruption. Secondly, using localized UV irradiation of cell nuclei with micropore filters, we demonstrate that cells can tolerate a large amount of DNA damage without inducing a p53 response provided it is localized and the nucleoli are not disrupted. Thus, DNA damage by itself does not cause p53 stabilization. Moreover, we show that the lower minimum response dose (MRD) for p53 induction by UV irradiation displayed by Cockayne syndrome (CS) cells (the basis for the model of p53 stabilization by transcription inhibition; Yamaizumi and Sugano, 1994; Ljungman and Zhang, 1996) also correlates with a lower minimum UV response dose for nucleolar disruption, further confirming that the intermediary between DNA damage and p53 stabilization is nucleolar disruption. Finally, since the model predicts that p53 should be stabilized whenever nucleolar disruption occurs, even in the absence of DNA damage, of phosphorylation inhibition or of metabolic stresses, we tested this prediction by microinjecting antibodies against the nucleolar protein upstream binding factor (UBF). We observed nucleolar disruption, induction of p53 and a low but noticeable induction of p21. We conclude that the nucleolar disruption model of p53 stabilization offers a unifying explanation for the induction of p53 under a wide range of cellular stresses. Our model predicts that a p53 response, rather that being induced, has to be constantly prevented by a fully functional nucleolus. Results Nucleolar disruption is independent of p53 We first had to define a criterion for nucleolar disruption. The cellular stresses summarized in Table I have all been shown to disrupt nucleolar function in one form or another. The confocal sections of fibrillarin staining of human normal diploid fibroblasts (NDFs) shown in Figure 1A–G exemplify the dispersion of nucleolar structures produced by some common p53-inducing agents. Figure 1A′–G′ indicates that these nucleolar modifications also occur in cells not expressing p53 (041 fibroblasts derived from Li–Fraumeni cells harbouring a deletion in one p53 allele, which subsequently have lost the remaining wtp53 allele; P.K.Liu et al., 1996). Since different treatments cause different alterations of nucleolar morphology, we decided to employ a more quantifiable marker of nucleolar disruption. For this, a criterion often used is translocation of the nucleolar protein nucleophosmin/B23 (NPM), which has been found to correlate with the cytotoxicity of a number of agents (Chan et al., 1996). NPM translocation from the nucleolus to the nucleoplasm following cell stress is evident in both NDFs and 041 cells, as shown in Figure 1A″–G″′. In these images, a pseudo-colour scale (indicated) is used in order to evidence the changes in nucleoplasmic staining, usually much weaker than the nucleolus since translocated NPM is diluted into a larger volume. For some agents such as 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and bleomycin (BLM), we found that NPM translocation is not a good marker of nucleolar disruption. This is also evidenced by analysing the correlation between NPM translocation and p53 stabilization (fluorescent staining with DO-1 antibody) for different agents (Figure 1H). NPM translocation has been proposed to retain p53 in the nucleoplasm, thus mediating p53 stabilization (Colombo et al., 2002). While this may occur in a number of stresses, we find that it cannot explain all situations of p53 stabilization, as we have found at least two common agents (5-FU and BLM) which stabilize p53 without extensive NPM translocation, while disrupting the nucleoli (compare Figure 1B, B′, B″, B″′, D, D′, D″, D″′ and H). DNA damage does not directly cause p53 stabilization When an individual nucleolus is inactivated by localized UV irradiation, the remaining intact nucleoli within the same nucleus expand such that the whole nucleolar function is not compromised (Zatsepina et al., 1989). UV irradiation can be expected to cause nucleolar disruption in two ways: by direct blockage of rDNA transcription and by global inhibition of RNA Pol II transcription. When UV irradiation is localized, the overall nucleoplasmic transcription is not affected (Mone et al., 2001). We reasoned that if our hypothesis that p53 is stabilized by nucleolar disruption is correct, then localized UV irradiation would not cause p53 stabilization, since few of the nucleoli, if any, would be inactivated. To test this, we UV irradiated NDFs through Isopore filters with 3 μm pores in conditions that ensured that cells received a UV dose equal to or larger than the minimum required for p53 stabilization (10 J/m2, see below). We defined whole-nucleus irradiation equivalent density (WED) as the UV density at which a whole nucleus has to be irradiated in order to receive the same amount of DNA damage as that received by localized irradiation through micropores. To determine the fraction of nuclei that would receive a WED of ≥10 J/m2, we irradiated NDFs through 3 μm filters, immediately fixed them and labelled the areas of damaged DNA with an anti-cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) antibody (see Materials and methods), and built a distribution of the fraction of nuclear projected area harbouring DNA damage (Figure 2A). It can be seen in Figure 2A that in these conditions practically all of the nuclei are irradiated on 10 J/m2 (Figure 4O, upper panel). However, irradiation at lower UV doses (1–2 and 4 J/m2) causes detectable phosphorylation of Ser15 and Ser392 (Figure 4O, middle and lower panels). Taken together, these data indicate that p53 phosphorylation and stabilization are separable. Discussion The model for p53 stabilization proposed in the present work, namely prevention of p53 degradation by nucleolar disruption, is, to our knowledge, the only model that can provide a unifying and coherent explanation for the action of all known p53-stabilizing agents. The model is robust in that all p53 inducers also cause nucleolar disruption, and no known p53-stabilizing agent contradicts it. Importantly, cell cycle-dependent variations in p53 levels can be accounted for by the model (see Introduction). As discussed in the Introduction, current knowledge of the biology of p53 fully agrees with a model where the nucleolus or nucleolar components participate in the Mdm2-mediated export and degradation of p53. Maintenance of p53 levels in the nucleolar disruption model The model proposed here presents a radically new view of the p53 response: rather than being actively induced from a ‘default’ resting level, a p53 response has to be constantly prevented from occurring, and the ‘default’ condition is p53 stabilization unless a fully functional nucleolus promotes its degradation. The nucleolar disruption mechanism is intrinsically safer than any ind
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