Wild-type p53 can induce p21 and apoptosis in neuroblastoma cells but the DNA damage-induced G1 checkpoint function is attenuated.

p53 is a tumor suppressor protein important in the regulation of apoptosis. Because p53 functions as a transcription factor, cellular responses depend upon activity of p53 localized in the nucleus. Cytoplasmic sequestration of p53 has been proposed as a mechanism by which the function of this protein can be suppressed, particularly in tumor types such as neuroblastoma in which the frequency of mutations of p53 is low. Data presented here demonstrate that nuclear p53 protein is expressed in a panel of neuroblastoma cell lines, and after exposure to DNA damage, transcriptionally active p53 expression can be induced. After exposure to both equitoxic IC80 and 10-Gy doses of ionizing radiation, both p53 and p21 were induced, but G1 cell cycle arrest was attenuated. To investigate whether the DNA damage signaling pathway was incapable of inducing sufficient p53 in these cells, we expressed additional wild-type p53 after adenoviral vector transduction. This exogenous p53 expression also resulted in p21 induction but was unable to enhance the G1 arrest, suggesting that the pathway downstream from p53 is nonfunctional. Although p53-mediated G1 arrest is attenuated in neuroblastoma cells, the ability of p53 to induce apoptosis appears functional, consistent with its chemosensitive phenotype. This work demonstrates that p53 is expressed in the nucleus of neuroblastoma cells and can mediate induction of p21. However, this cell type appears to have an attenuated ability to mediate a DNA damage-induced G1 cell cycle arrest.