Induction of p53-independent apoptosis by hygromycin B: suppression by Bcl-2 and adenovirus E1B 19-kDa protein.

Hygromycin B, an aminoglycoside antibiotic that is widely used to establish stable mammalian cell lines that carry a bacterial gene conferring resistance to the drug, is shown here to induce apoptotic programmed cell death in susceptible cells. Dying cells exhibited typical features of apoptosis, including cell shrinkage, membrane blebbing, nuclear pyknosis, and extensive internucleosomal fragmentation of DNA. Employing concentrations of hygromycin B that are typically used for selecting stable cell lines, we show that susceptible cells die rapidly, exhibiting the morphological properties of apoptosis by 18 h and detectable DNA fragmentation as early as 2 h after receiving the drug. G418, on the other hand, required days to cause cell death, which was not accompanied by internucleosomal DNA fragmentation. Apoptotic cell killing by hygromycin B did not require expression of wild-type p53 and was suppressed by both Bcl-2 and the Adenovirus type 5 E1B 19-kDa protein.