Historical Background
As the major tumor suppressor in multicellular organisms, p53 arguably is one of the most intensively studied human proteins (over 54,000 publications including nearly 7,000 reviews) because it is critical for maintaining genomic stability and cellular homeostatic processes in response to multiple stresses. The p53 protein is a tetrameric, sequence-specific, DNA-binding transcription factor, stabilized and activated in response to genotoxic and non-genotoxic stresses; estimates are that the activation of p53 directly or indirectly induces or represses the expression of about 1,500 genes. These genes coordinate the cellular response to protect cells and/or the organism from damage by arresting the cell cycle and inducing repair, by initiating apoptosis, a program of cell death, or by triggering senescence, a permanent arrest of the cell cycle (Vousden and Prives 2009). Discovered almost simultaneously just over 30 years ago...
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Acknowledgments
D. Meek, D. Menendez, M. Resnick, and K. Sakaguchi are thanked for critical comments and suggestions. CWA and KAB were supported in part by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research Low Dose Radiation Research Program and by Laboratory Directed Research and Development funds at the Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract with the US Department of Energy.
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Alexieva-Botcheva, K., Anderson, C.W. (2012). p53. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0461-4_57
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