Such studies have led to describing important roles of mutant p53 in direct inhibition of the p63/p73-mediated tumor suppression (28, 29), activation of the cell cycle drivers, such as Cyclins (30, 31), the vitamin D3 receptor signaling (32), steroid synthesis (mevalonate pathway) (33), the ID4-mediated angiogenesis (34), or nucleotide homeostasis (26), to name a few

Such studies have led to describing important roles of mutant p53 in direct inhibition of the p63/p73-mediated tumor suppression (28, 29), activation of the cell cycle drivers, such as Cyclins (30, 31), the vitamin D3 receptor signaling (32), steroid synthesis (mevalonate pathway) (33), the ID4-mediated angiogenesis (34), or nucleotide homeostasis (26), to name a few. experimental approaches that have been used to describe the numerous Aceclofenac mutant p53 gain-of-function activities. Therapeutic possibilities are also discussed, taking into account targeting either individual or multiple mutant p53 proteins in human malignancy. gene occur in almost every type of malignancy, with frequencies that vary between 10% (hematopoietic malignancies) and 96% (high grade ovarian serous carcinoma) (1). Malignancy genome sequencing studies confirm that may be the most commonly mutated tumor suppressor gene in human cancers (2). The majority of studies indicate that the presence of mutated is usually associated with bad prognosis in various malignancy types (3). mutations are known first and foremost to inactivate the oncosuppressive properties of the wild-type p53 protein as a transcription factor (loss-of-function?C?LOF). However, since p53 functions as a tetramer, expressed mutant variants can also exert a dominant negative (DN) effect over their wild-type counterpart, and additionally they can Aceclofenac arm malignancy cells with novel oncogenic gain-of-function (GOF) activities (4C6). In over 70% of cases, the mutations are missense, most frequently within the region encoding the core domain of the p53 protein, which is responsible for binding DNA (7). Even though spectrum of the missense mutations is usually vast?C?counting about 1,800 different amino-acid changes (8)?C?several hotspot p53 mutants, in particular, affecting residues R273, R248, R175, and G245 of the p53 protein, are present with a higher frequency both in sporadic tumors (together over 21% of total missense mutations) and in individuals with the LiCFraumeni syndrome (LFS), a genetic disorder caused by inherited mutations that predispose service providers to an early-onset development of Aceclofenac various cancers (9). The hotspot changes in p53 are traditionally classified as conformational or DNA contact mutations. This notion comes from the biophysical observation that this former group disturbs the proper folding of the core domain name of p53, thus depriving it of the ability to bind the DNA and transactivate its target genes, while the latter group is composed of mutations in residues that are responsible for directly binding DNA, with a near-native core domain structure (10, 11). In the LFS, a wild-type allele is usually present, whereas in LFS tumors, it is often (in the 40C60% of cases) subjected to inactivation (loss of heterozygosity?C?LOH)?C?a process that is observed both in mouse LFS models (12) and in humans (13), involving numerous mechanisms of wild-type inactivation (14). Interestingly, it has been recently noted that in the embryonic stem cells from LFS mice the lost allele is usually often the mutant one, suggesting that a bi-directional LOH process may function as a cell-fate checkpoint and that there exists a selective pressure against the heterozygous state (15). p53 mutant proteins are stabilized and guarded from degradation in a tumor microenvironment by numerous oncogenic signaling pathways (16, 17), and several studies in mutant p53 knock-in (KI) mice showed that the presence of p53 mutants promotes tumor growth with higher metastasis rate and different tissue spectrum than the absence of wild-type p53 (12, 18). These proofs of mutant p53 GOF came as confirmation of the initial observations in cell models that mutant p53 missense Aceclofenac variants may actively support cell transformation (19, 20). Even though the oncogenic activity related to GOF p53 mutants has been described many times in the last 25?years of research on p53, there are still doubts concerning its significance. Current approaches are only starting to handle whether missense p53 mutants can be regarded as essentially one oncoprotein endowed with a conserved tumorigenic activity, or they symbolize a populace of different oncoproteins, each exerting its unique oncogenic potential. Mutant p53 is still not used in standard clinical practice as a target of anti-cancer therapies. We discuss these issues in the following sections of this review. One or Many?C?Mutant p53 vs. p53?Mutants The rising importance of the GOF of p53 mutants in malignancy has led to numerous studies describing their mechanisms of action and a brought forward question how much the obtained results can be generalized across different mutant p53 variants and cellular or malignancy backgrounds. A minority of these studies is based on mutant p53 KI mouse models and led to a number of discoveries in the field, including (i) the inhibitory role of Rabbit polyclonal to Caspase 3 mutant p53 on MRE11 protein and the induction of genomic instability (human KI HupKI mouse model) (21), (ii) the transcription-based activation of PDGFR signaling in pancreatic malignancy model (22), (ii) the transcriptional activation of oncogenic Pla2g16 phospholipase (23), and (iv) the confirmation of prior cell-based reports on a mutant p53-mediated inhibition of the p63/p73 oncosuppressive activity (12, Aceclofenac 18)..