p53 reactivation offers a broad-based strategy for cancer therapy. In this study, we report the identification of prodigiosin that can reactivate p53 family-dependent transcriptional activity in p53-deficient human colon cancer cells. Prodigiosin and its structural analogue (compound R) induced the expression of p53 target genes accompanied by cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis in p53-deficient ca...

Cervical cytological examination is the most widely applied screening method for cervical cancer and its precursors. Liquid-based cytology produces goodquality smears1 and enables the use of ancillary laboratory techniques to distinguish neoplastic from benign cells.1 Immunohistochemical and molecular markers have been tested to identify dysplastic cells in cervical smears. When testing for hum...

T he report in this issue of PNAS by Joerger et al. (1) solves the structure of the p73 oligomerization domain that produces a tetrameric protein and compares this structure with p63 (closely related) and p53 (more distantly related). This provides new information about the comparative evolution of these three (p53, p63, and p73) proteins and more. The human genome contains three genes encoding...

The p53 tumor suppressor protein, found mutated in over 50% of all human tumors, is a sequence-specific transcriptional activator. Recent studies have identified a p53 relative, termed p73. We were interested in determining the relative abilities of wild-type and mutant forms of p53 and p73alpha and -beta isoforms to transactivate various p53-responsive promoters. We show that both p73alpha and...

OBJECTIVE p73 and p63 are two structural and functional homologs of p53, and their biological functions in cancer progression have attracted attention due to the presence of variants generated by genetic polymorphisms. Recently, three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the p63 and p73 genes have been associated with female reproduction. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the rela...

In the fetal human hippocampus, Cajal-Retzius (CR) cells coexpress p73, a p53-family member involved in cell survival and apoptosis, and the glycoprotein reelin, crucial for radial migration. We distinguish two populations of putative CR cells. (1). p73/reelin expressing cells appear around 10 gestational weeks (GW) at the cortico-choroid border in the temporal horn of the lateral ventricle (th...

The p73 gene contains an extrinsic P1 promoter and an intrinsic P2 promoter, controlling the transcription of the pro-apoptotic TAp73 isoform and the anti-apoptotic ΔΝp73 isoform, respectively. The DNA methylation status of both promoters act equally in the epigenetic transcriptional regulation of their relevant isoforms. The aim of this study was to analyze the different effects of these p73 i...

It has been reported that spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) show ventricular dilation, changes in CSF proteins and variations in the circumventricular organs (CVO) such as: the subcommissural organ (SCO), the subfornical organ (SFO) and the area postrema (AP) which are located in the walls of the third and fourth ventricles. On the other hand, p73 proteins are present in cells of the centra...

Identification of unique features of cancer cells is important for defining specific and efficient therapeutic targets. Mutant p53 is present in nearly half of all cancer cases, forming a promising target for pharmacological reactivation. In addition to being defective for the tumor-suppressor function, mutant p53 contributes to malignancy by blocking a p53 family member p73. Here, we describe ...