Skip to main content
. 2016 Jan 11;14(1):e1002349. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002349

Fig 4. p53 plays a vital role in cell death following hWH depletion.

Fig 4

(A) Depletion of hWH induces DNA damage (appearance of γ-H2AX) in both HCT116 p53+/+ and HCT116 p53-/- cells, but only causes loss of viability in HCT116 p53+/+ cells. (B) Depletion of hWH causes apoptosis in HCT116 p53+/+ cells (revealed by the cleavage of Procaspase-3 and PARP), but not in HCT116 p53-/- cells. (C) Knockdown of p53 mitigates apoptosis and improves viability after depleting hWH in HCT116 p53+/+ cells. Simultaneously knocking down hWH and p53 (by p53 siRNA, sip53) reduces PARP cleavage and increases cell viability in comparison with single knockdown of hWH. (D) Transfection of ectopic p53 in HCT116 p53-/- cells promotes cell death resulting from depletion of hWH. Reversion of p53 status in HCT116 p53-/- cells was carried out by transfection of pcDNA3.1/p53 construct (p[p53]). The expression of p53 protein was observed in p[p53] cells but not in vector control (p[V]). Single asterisk indicates significant difference at p < 0.05, according to Student’s t test.