Adenovirus E1B oncoprotein tethers a transcriptional repression domain to p53

• Published in: Genes & development Vol. 8; no. 2; pp. 190 - 202
• Main Authors: YEW, P. R, XUAN LIU, BERK, A. J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cold Spring Harbor, NY Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 1994
• Subjects: Adenovirus E1B Proteins - metabolism; Amino Acid Sequence; Base Sequence; Biological and medical sciences; Cells, Cultured; DNA-Binding Proteins; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Fungal Proteins - metabolism; Genetics; HeLa Cells; Humans; Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; Oncogene Proteins, Viral - metabolism; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Repressor Proteins - metabolism; Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; Transcription Factors; Transcription, Genetic; Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 - genetics; Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 - metabolism; Virology; Virus; Protein p53; Regulation(control); Adenoviridae; Transcription; Molecular interaction; Transcription repressor; Mutation; Cell transformation; Tumor suppressor gene
• ISSN: 0890-9369; 1549-5477
• DOI: 10.1101/gad.8.2.190

Many DNA tumor viruses express a protein that inhibits transcriptional activation by the tumor-suppressing transcription factor p53. We report that adenovirus E1B 55K represses p53-mediated activation by a mechanism not described previously. E1B 55K binds p53 without displacing it from its DNA-binding site. A fusion of E1B 55K to the GAL4 DNA-binding domain represses transcription from a variety of promoters with engineered upstream GAL4-binding sites. Mutations within E1B 55K that interfere with its transforming activity and its ability to inhibit p53-mediated trans-activation also interfere with transcriptional repression by the GAL4-55K fusion. These results demonstrate that E1B 55K functions as a direct transcriptional repressor that is targeted to p53-responsive genes by binding to p53.