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GENE REGULATION

Speckle function for p53

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 22, page 372 (2021)Cite this article

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Nuclear speckles are membraneless bodies that are involved in mRNA production and processing. Although gene-dense genomic regions and highly expressed genes associate with nuclear speckles, elucidating how speckles promote gene expression has been challenging. Alexander et al. now describe how the association with speckles boosts the expression of specific target genes of the transcription factor p53.

To further analyse the connection between p53 and nuclear speckles, p53 mutants deficient in specific functions were generated and expressed in p53-null cells. p53 proteins mutated in the DNA binding domain or in the poorly characterized proline-rich domain failed to induce p21–speckle association and supported lower levels of nascent p21 RNA. Thus, DNA binding by p53 is required for p21–speckle association and high-level p21 expression.

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References

Original article

  • Alexander, K. A. et al. p53 mediates target gene association with nuclear speckles for amplified RNA expression. Mol. Cell 81, 1666–1681 (2021)

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Related article

  • Hafner, A. et al. The multiple mechanisms that regulate p53 activity and cell fate. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 20, 199–210 (2019)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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  1. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology http://www.nature.com/nrm/

    Eytan Zlotorynski

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  1. Eytan Zlotorynski
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Correspondence to Eytan Zlotorynski.

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Zlotorynski, E. Speckle function for p53. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 22, 372 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-021-00379-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-021-00379-1

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