The family that eats together stays together: new p53 family transcriptional targets in autophagy

Abstract

Autophagy is a biological process that is crucial to maintain cellular homeostasis and is regulated by several metabolic pathways, including the p53 tumor suppressor pathway. In this issue of Genes & Development, Kenzelmann Broz and colleagues (pp. 1016-1031) show how the p53 family as a whole, including p63 and p73, collaborate in controlling autophagy to support tumor suppression.

Keywords: ChIP-seq; RNA-seq; autophagy; p53; tumor suppression.

Figure 1.

Autophagy regulation by the p53 family members in cells under physiological and stressful conditions. Basal cytosolic p53 levels can inhibit autophagy, and a similar role is possible for p63 and p73 (dashed lines). Upon treatment of cells with different kinds of stress inducers, the p53 family members translocate to the nucleus, where they cooperate to trigger the expression of the ATGs. A possible dominant-negative effect by mutant p53 proteins could occur to inhibit the ability of p63 and p73 to induce autophagy.