Disruption of the normal p53 response by TP53 mutation

leads to the development of tumours and as 50% of human tumours contain a mutation in TP53 it is arguably the most important cancer gene ( Olivier et al., 2010). Mouse models offer the possibility to study p53 function both through phenotypic analysis of the whole organism and through examination of a variety of primary cell types derived from mice (Kenzelmann Broz and Attardi, 2010). Selleckchem Ku0059436 These models include knockout of Trp53 to study loss of p53 function and knock-in strategies to examine human TP53 mutants and polymorphic variants. For example, studies in mouse strains expressing mutant p53 corresponding to R175H and R273H hot spot mutations in human cancers revealed that these mutants exhibited gain-of-function properties in addition to loss of normal

www.selleckchem.com/screening/pi3k-signaling-inhibitor-library.html p53 function (i.e. altered tumour spectrum in addition to more metastatic tumours) ( Freed-Pastor and Prives, 2012, Lang et al., 2004 and Olive et al., 2004). In another study Song et al. (2007) introduced two common human TP53 cancer mutations, R248W and R273H, independently into humanized TP53 knock-in (Hupki) mice and found that the tumour suppressor functions of p53 were abolished in mice with mutant p53. Further, their findings suggested that mutant, but not wild-type, p53 can interact with and inhibit ATM, a protein involved in the recognition of DNA damage, indicating that p53 gain-of-function mutants

can promote tumourigenesis by interfering with critical DNA damage response pathways ( Song et al., 2007). We have used the Hupki model to study carcinogen-induced TP53 mutagenesis where primary Hupki embryo fibroblasts (HUFs) were exposed to mutagens and then selected for bypass of culture-induced senescence and immortalisation ( Kucab et al., 2010 and Luo et al., 2001). Environmental carcinogens that have been examined using the HUF immortalisation assay include benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), which is associated with tobacco smoke-induced lung cancer ( Liu et al., 2005 and Reinbold et al., 2008) and fantofarone aristolochic acid (AA), which is linked to aristolochic acid nephropathy (AAN)-associated urothelial cancer ( Gokmen et al., 2013, Liu et al., 2004 and Nedelko et al., 2009). In both cases the generated TP53 mutation pattern corresponded to the pattern found in human tumours ( Hollstein et al., 2013 and Kucab et al., 2010). The p53 Platform (PLF) mouse is a novel mouse strain which allows the precise importation of human TP53 sequences into the endogenous mouse Trp53 gene ( Wei et al., 2011 and Wei et al., 2012).