The roles of synoviolin in crosstalk between endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis and p53 pathway.

Endopalsmic reticulum (ER) is specialized organelle to maintain the integrity of secreted and membranous proteins. ER also senses so-called "ER stress", which is a result of various internal and external stresses, and triggers apoptosis when the diverse attempts to accommodate with the stress are in fail. The impairment these ER functions has been implicated in several human diseases, in which aberrant ER stress induced apoptosis is observed. We discuss about another disease model related with ER mediated apoptosis based on the recent studies about Synoviolin, an E3 ubiquitin ligase inherently utilized for ER associated degradation (ERAD). In addition to its canonical role in ERAD, Synoviolin targets tumor suppressor gene p53 for proteasomal degradation, suggesting the crosstalk between ERAD and p53 mediated apoptotic pathway under ER stress. Together with the anti-apoptotic property of Synoviolin previously elucidated by both in vitro and in vivo analyses, its new function in p53 regulation may provide a new insight into the pathomechanism of proliferative diseases such as cancer or rheumatoid arthritis.