Molecular mechanisms for the p38-induced cellular senescence in normal human fibroblast

In this study, we identified the MAPK p38 as a downstream mediator of TAK1, which represses hTERT transcription. Further, we observed that hTERT expression was repressed in senescent normal human fibroblast, and was attenuated on treatment with SB203580, a p38-specific inhibitor, which suggests that p38 represses hTERT expression during cellular senescence. Next, we demonstrated that repression of hTERT, irrespective of the activation status of p38, is important for the induction of cellular senescence, by using hTERT-overexpressing cells and hTERT-knockdown cells. Our results suggested that p38 is activated during the serial passagings of normal human fibroblast, which results in the repression of hTERT transcription and induction of cellular senescence.
Source: Journal of Biochemistry - Category: Biochemistry Authors: Tags: Regular Papers Source Type: research