Increase in expression level of p21sdi1/cip1/waf1 with increasing division age in both normal and SV40-transformed human fibroblasts.

p21sdi1/cip1/waf1 gene, whose product inhibits Cyclin/Cdk kinase and blocks cell proliferation, is known to be up-regulated by p53 and to be expressed at high levels in senescent human fibroblasts. The present paper reports that p21 expression level was much lower in SV40tsT-antigen transformed cells than in normal cells and that after inactivation of tsT-antigen it recovered to that of normal cells. However, cell division age-dependent increase in expression level of p21 occurred not only in normal human fibroblasts but also in SV40tsT-antigen transformed fibroblasts with active T-antigen. These results suggest that cell age-dependent increase in p21 occurs independently upon the function of T-antigen binding proteins including p53, while the basal expression level of p21 is up-regulated by p53 as previously reported.