Abstract
Restitution of lost tumor-suppressor activities may be a promising strategy to target specifically cancer cells. However, the action of ectopically expressed tumor-suppressor genes depends on genetic background of tumoral cells. Ectopic expression of p16INK4a induces either cell cycle arrest or apoptosis in different pancreatic cancer cell lines. We examined the molecular mechanisms mediating these two different cellular responses to p16 overexpression. Ectopic expression of p16 leads to G1 arrest in NP-9 cells by redistributing p21/p27 CKIs and inhibiting cyclin-dependent kinase CDK2 activity. In contrast, in NP-18 cells cyclin E (CycE)/CDK2 activity is significantly higher and is not downregulated by p16-mediated redistribution of p21/p27. Moreover, inhibition of CDK4 activity with fascaplysine, which does not affect CycE/CDK2 activity, reduces pocket protein phosphorylation in both cell lines, but fails to induce growth arrest. Like overexpression of p16, fascaplysine induces apoptosis in NP-18 cells, suggesting that inhibition of D-type cyclin/CDK activity in cells with high levels of CycE/CDK2 activity activates an apoptotic pathway. Inhibition of CycE/CDK2 activity via ectopic expression of p21 in NP-18 cells overexpressing p16 induces growth arrest and prevents p16-mediated apoptosis. Accordingly, silencing of p21 expression by using small interfering RNA switches the fate of p16-expressing NP-9 cells from cell cycle arrest to apoptosis. Our data suggest that, after CDK4/6 inactivation, the fate of pancreatic tumor cells depends on the ability to modulate CDK2 activity.
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Abbreviations
- CKI:
-
cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor
- CDK:
-
cyclin dependent kinase
- siRNA:
-
small interference RNA
- MEF:
-
mouse embryo fibroblast
- cDNA:
-
complementary DNA
- MOI:
-
multiplicity of infection
- PARP:
-
poly-ADP-ribose polymerase
- PFU:
-
plaque forming unit
- wt:
-
wild-type
- Cyc:
-
cyclin
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Acknowledgements
We thank Juan Fueyo and Wafik El-Deiry for providing recombinant adenoviruses and Ed Harlow for antibodies. We thank Mayumi Kataoka and Jaume Comas for flow cytometric analysis and May Truongcao, Julita Yarwood and Deborah Pons for technical assistance. We thank Neus Carbó for carefully reading of the manuscript, and Robin Rycroft for editorial help. JC and CS were partially supported by fellowships from Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Spain). This work was supported in part by grants to AM including grants from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (SAF-98-0042 and SAF2002-04122-C03-03) and from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (G03-156) and to XG including a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH-R29, GM54894), a grant (NIH R01, AI45450) and a Career Development Award (K02 AI01823) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a WW Smith grant (A9802/9901). Facilities used for this work were supported in part by a Shared Resources for Cancer Research Grant R24 (CA88261-01).
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Calbó, J., Serna, C., Garriga, J. et al. The fate of pancreatic tumor cell lines following p16 overexpression depends on the modulation of CDK2 activity. Cell Death Differ 11, 1055–1065 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4401481
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4401481
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