Deciphering the safeguarding role of cysteine residues in p53 against H2O2-induced oxidation using high-resolution native mass spectrometry

Abstract The transcription factor p53 is exquisitely sensitive and selective to a broad variety of cellular environments. Several studies have reported that oxidative stress weakens the p53-DNA binding affinity for certain promoters depending on the oxidation mechanism. Despite this body of work, th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Manuel David Peris-Díaz, Artur Krężel, Perdita Barran
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-01-01
Series:Communications Chemistry
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-024-01395-w
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract The transcription factor p53 is exquisitely sensitive and selective to a broad variety of cellular environments. Several studies have reported that oxidative stress weakens the p53-DNA binding affinity for certain promoters depending on the oxidation mechanism. Despite this body of work, the precise mechanisms by which the physiologically relevant DNA-p53 tetramer complex senses cellular stresses caused by H2O2 are still unknown. Here, we employed native mass spectrometry (MS) and ion mobility (IM)-MS coupled to chemical labelling and H2O2-induced oxidation to examine the mechanism of redox regulation of the p53-p21 complex. Our approach has found that two reactive cysteines in p53 protect against H2O2-induced oxidation by forming reversible sulfenates.
ISSN:2399-3669