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Updated: Jul 15, 2026
Yeast As a Chassis for Developing Functional Assays to Study Human P53
Published on: August 4, 2019
Mutation of RRM2B, encoding p53-controlled ribonucleotide reductase (p53R2), causes severe mitochondrial DNA
Alice Bourdon1, Limor Minai, Valérie Serre
1Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale U781 and Service de Génétique, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, 149 rue de Sèvres, 75015 Paris, France.
Abstract:
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) depletion syndrome (MDS; MIM 251880) is a prevalent cause of oxidative phosphorylation disorders characterized by a reduction in mtDNA copy number. The hitherto recognized disease mechanisms alter either mtDNA replication (POLG (ref. 1)) or the salvage pathway of mitochondrial deoxyribonucleosides 5'-triphosphates (dNTPs) for mtDNA synthesis (DGUOK (ref. 2), TK2 (ref. 3) and SUCLA2 (ref. 4)). A last gene, MPV17 (ref. 5), has no known function. Yet the majority of cases remain unexplained. Studying seven cases of profound mtDNA depletion (1-2% residual mtDNA in muscle) in four unrelated families, we have found nonsense, missense and splice-site mutations and in-frame deletions of the RRM2B gene, encoding the cytosolic p53-inducible ribonucleotide reductase small subunit. Accordingly, severe mtDNA depletion was found in various tissues of the Rrm2b-/- mouse. The mtDNA depletion triggered by p53R2 alterations in both human and mouse implies that p53R2 has a crucial role in dNTP supply for mtDNA synthesis.
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