Ribosome biogenesis dysfunction leads to p53-mediated apoptosis and goblet cell differentiation of mouse intestinal stem/progenitor cells.

Ribosome biogenesis is an essential cellular process. Its impairment is associated with developmental defects and increased risk of cancer. The in vivo cellular responses to defective ribosome biogenesis and the underlying molecular mechanisms are still incompletely understood. In particular, the consequences of impaired ribosome biogenesis within the intestinal epithelium in mammals have not been investigated so far. Here we adopted a genetic approach to investigate the role of Notchless (NLE), an essential actor of ribosome biogenesis, in the adult mouse intestinal lineage. Nle deficiency led to defects in the synthesis of large ribosomal subunit in crypts cells and resulted in the rapid elimination of intestinal stem cells and progenitors through distinct types of cellular responses, including apoptosis, cell cycle arrest and biased differentiation toward the goblet cell lineage. Similar observations were made using the rRNA transcription inhibitor CX-5461 on intestinal organoids culture. Importantly, we found that p53 activation was responsible for most of the cellular responses observed, including differentiation toward the goblet cell lineage. Moreover, we identify the goblet cell-specific marker Muc2 as a direct transcriptional target of p53. Nle-deficient ISCs and progenitors disappearance persisted in the absence of p53, underlying the existence of p53-independent cellular responses following defective ribosome biogenesis. Our data indicate that NLE is a crucial factor for intestinal homeostasis and provide new insights into how perturbations of ribosome biogenesis impact on cell fate decisions within the intestinal epithelium.

Mice engineered for an obligatory Mdm4 exon skipping express higher levels of the Mdm4-S isoform but exhibit increased p53 activity.

Mdm4, a protein related to the ubiquitin-ligase Mdm2, is an essential inhibitor of tumor suppressor protein p53. In both human and mouse cells, the Mdm4 gene encodes two major transcripts: one encodes the full-length oncoprotein (designated below as Mdm4-FL), whereas the other, resulting from a variant splicing that skips exon 6, encodes the shorter isoform Mdm4-S. Importantly, increased Mdm4-S mRNA levels were observed in several human cancers, and correlated with poor survival. However, the role of Mdm4-S in cancer progression remains controversial, because the Mdm4-S protein appeared to be a potent p53 inhibitor when overexpressed, but the splice variant also leads to a decrease in Mdm4-FL expression. To unambiguously determine the physiological impact of the Mdm4-S splice variant, we generated a mouse model with a targeted deletion of the Mdm4 exon 6, thereby creating an obligatory exon skipping. The mutant allele (Mdm4(ΔE6)) prevented the expression of Mdm4-FL, but also led to increased Mdm4-S mRNA levels. Mice homozygous for this allele died during embryonic development, but were rescued by a concomitant p53 deficiency. Furthermore in a hypomorphic p53(ΔP/ΔP) context, the Mdm4(ΔE6) allele led to p53 activation and delayed the growth of oncogene-induced tumors. We next determined the effect of Mdm4(+/ΔE6) heterozygosity in a hypermorphic p53(+/Δ31) genetic background, recently shown to be extremely sensitive to Mdm4 activity. Mdm4(+/ΔE6) p53(+/Δ31) pups were born, but suffered from aplastic anemia and died before weaning, again indicating an increased p53 activity. Our results demonstrate that the main effect of a skipping of Mdm4 exon 6 is not the synthesis of the Mdm4-S protein, but rather a decrease in Mdm4-FL expression. These and other data suggest that increased Mdm4-S mRNA levels might correlate with more aggressive cancers without encoding significant amounts of a potential oncoprotein. Hypotheses that may account for this apparent paradox are discussed.

Mdm4 loss in mice expressing a p53 hypomorph alters tumor spectrum without improving survival.

The p53 pathway is inactivated in most human cancers, and its reactivation in tumors appears as a promising therapeutic strategy. Overexpression of Mdm4, a p53 negative regulator, occurs in a significant fraction of human cancers. Mouse models were used to evaluate the therapeutic potential of strategies against Mdm4, and encouraging results were obtained for tumor cells in which Mdm4 overexpression prevents wild-type p53 to exert its tumor suppressive functions. However, missense mutations in the p53 gene occur in about half of human cancers, and 15% of such mutations lead to the expression of a mutant protein that retains partial activity. In this report, we used mouse models to address the therapeutic potential of strategies against Mdm4 in tumors expressing an hypomorphic p53 mutant. We found that, in an Rb(+/-) background promoting pituitary and thyroid tumors, decreased Mdm4 levels improved the survival of mice expressing wild-type p53, but not that of mice expressing p53(ΔP), a p53 hypomorph lacking the proline-rich domain. Importantly, however, most Rb(+/-) p53(ΔP/ΔP) mice developped pituitary adenomas, but these tumors were rare in Rb(+/-) p53(ΔP/ΔP) Mdm4(-/-) animals, because Mdm4 loss led to increased p21 levels, a suppressor of pituitary tumor growth. On the contrary, Rb(+/-) p53(ΔP/ΔP) and Rb(+/-) p53(ΔP/ΔP) Mdm4(-/-) mice developped anaplastic thyroid carcinomas at equal frequencies. Importantly, wild-type p53 represses the Plk1 gene, which encodes a promising therapeutic target in anaplastic thyroid carcinomas, and this repression is improved when Mdm4 levels are decreased. On the opposite, p53(ΔP) is a mediocre transcriptional repressor that is not improved by Mdm4 loss. In sum, depending on the tumor type, strategies against Mdm4 that work in cells expressing wild-type p53 may not work in cells expressing an hypomorphic p53. Furthermore, p53-mediated transcriptional repression should be considered when evaluating strategies to reactivate p53 in tumors.