p53 is one of the most studied tumor suppressor proteins that plays an important role in basic biological processes including cell cycle, DNA damage response, apoptosis, and senescence. The human TP53 gene contains alternative promoters that produce N-terminally truncated proteins and can produce several isoforms due to alternative splicing. p53 function is realized by binding to a specific DNA response element (RE), resulting in the transactivation of target genes. Here, we evaluated the influence of quadruplex DNA structure on the transactivation potential of full-length and N-terminal truncated p53α isoforms in a panel of S. cerevisiae luciferase reporter strains. Our results show that a G-quadruplex prone sequence is not sufficient for transcription activation by p53α isoforms, but the presence of this feature in proximity to a p53 RE leads to a significant reduction of transcriptional activity and changes the dynamics between co-expressed p53α isoforms.

Department of Biology Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Kamenice 5 62500 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Experimental Biology Faculty of Science Masaryk University Kamenice 5 62500 Brno Czech Republic

Faculty of Chemistry Brno University of Technology Purkyňova 118 61200 Brno Czech Republic

Institute of Biophysics Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Královopolská 135 61265 Brno Czech Republic

Laboratory of Transcriptional Networks Department CIBIO University of Trento via Sommarive 9 38123 Trento Italy

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The presence of a G-quadruplex prone sequence upstream of a minimal promoter increases transcriptional activity in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Evaluating the Influence of a G-Quadruplex Prone Sequence on the Transactivation Potential by Wild-Type and/or Mutant P53 Family Proteins through a Yeast-Based Functional Assay

Amino Acid Composition in Various Types of Nucleic Acid-Binding Proteins