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Chk1 is dispensable for G2 arrest in response to sustained DNA damage when the ATM/p53/p21 pathway is functional

Oncogene volume 30, pages 4261–4274 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

In the presence of sustained DNA damage occurring in S-phase or G2, normal cells arrest before mitosis and eventually become senescent. The checkpoint kinases Chk1/Chk2 and the CDK inhibitor p21 are known to have important complementary roles in this process, in G2 arrest and cell cycle exit, respectively. However, additional checkpoint roles have been reported for these regulators and it is not clear to what extent their functions are redundant. Here we compared the respective roles of Chk1, Chk2 and p21 in DNA damage-induced G2 arrest in normal human fibroblasts, normal epithelial cells and frequently used p53 proficient cancer cells. We show that in normal cells, Chk1, but not Chk2, is involved in G2 arrest whereas neither are essential. In contrast, p21 is required. However, Chk1, but not Chk2, becomes necessary for arrest in U2OS osteosarcoma cells. We find that their ATM/p53/p21 response in G2 phase is defective, like in other cancer cells with wild-type p53, and conclude that cross-talk between the Chk1 and p21 pathways allows them to switch dependency for G2 arrest onto Chk1. Using the specific ATM inhibitor KU-55933 we confirm the essential role of ATM in the induction of p21 for G2 arrest of normal cells. Efficient p21 induction is required for nuclear sequestration of inactive cyclin B1-Cdk1 complexes preceding irreversible cell cycle exit in G2. Our results demonstrate that p21 is able to fulfill the Chk1 functions in G2 arrest under continuous genotoxic stress, which has important implications for cancer chemotherapy.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants of ARC (grant N° 3631 to JP and N°3793 to VD) the Cancéropole du Grand Sud Ouest and the Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Recherche (MENR, EB). The team (GL, VD and DF) is ‘Equipe labellisé’ by the Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer (LNCC, N° EL2010.LNCC/DF). GL was recipient of a PhD fellowship from LNCC. We are grateful to KUDOS Pharmaceuticals for gift KU-55933, Dr AM Creighton for gift ICRF-193, Dr D Galloway (Seattle, USA) for the E6 retroviral vector and Dr A Constantinou for DNA-PKcs-specific antibodies. We thank Dr D Fraillery for helping us in analysis of HeLa and U2OS cells, Drs V Gire and J Loncarek for the retroviral transduction of the HMEC-derived cell lines, Drs E Julien, C Sardet, A Camasses, P Coopman and N Taylor for critical reading of the manuscript and Dr A Constantinou for encouragement. We acknowledge the Montpellier RIO imaging facility (Head Dr P Travo) for their help. Finally, we thank the reviewers for insightful suggestions.

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  1. G Lossaint

    Present address: 3Current address: Institut de Génétique Humaine, CNRS UPR 1142, 141, rue de la Cardonille, 34396 Montpellier, Cedex 5, France.,

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  1. Institut de Génétique Moléculaire de Montpellier, UMR 5535 CNRS-Université Montpellier 1 et 2, Montpellier, France

    G Lossaint, D Fisher, J Piette & V Dulić

  2. Institut de Génétique Fonctionelle, UMR 5203 CNRS, U661 INSERM, 141, rue de la Cardonille, Montpellier, France

    E Besnard

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Lossaint, G., Besnard, E., Fisher, D. et al. Chk1 is dispensable for G2 arrest in response to sustained DNA damage when the ATM/p53/p21 pathway is functional. Oncogene 30, 4261–4274 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2011.135

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