Seminar

p53 and innate immunity, new insights to an old story

Igotz Delgado, PhD

The tumor suppressor p53, widely known as "the guardian of the genome," is activated in response to several types of cellular stress, including DNA damage and oncogene expression. Its well-studied functions include inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, which act to prevent the emergence of transformed cells. It has been recently reported that cells that conserve p53 functions show an increase in p53-dependent apoptosis in response to viral infection, which is associated with reduced viral replication, suggesting that p53 may have a broader role in antiviral defense than initially thought. In agreement with this hypothesis, recent reports established that some IFN-related genes such as IRF5 or ISG15 are in fact p53 direct target genes, although the role of these interactions in antiviral defense has not yet been explored. Our findings indicate that p53 not only enhances apoptosis in response to viral infection but also plays an important role in the IFN-dependent antiviral response, providing a rationale to devise therapeutic strategies that enhance p53 expression to control viral infections.