Conservation and divergence of the p53 gene regulatory network between mice and humans

Understanding the p53 tumor suppressor pathway remains crucial for the design of anticancer strategies. Studies in human tumors and mouse models help to unravel the molecular mechanisms that underlie the p53 signaling pathway. Yet, the p53 gene regulatory network (GRN) is not the same in mice and humans. The comparison of the regulatory networks of p53 in mice and humans reveals that gene up- and down-regulation by p53 are distinctly affected during evolution. Importantly, gene up-regulation by p53 underwent more rapid evolution and gene down-regulation has been evolutionarily constrained. This difference stems from the two major mechanisms employed by p53 to regulate gene expression: up-regulation through direct p53 target gene binding and indirect down-regulation through the p53-p21-DREAM pathway. More than 1000 genes have been identified to differ in their p53-dependent expression between mice and humans. Analysis of p53 gene expression profiles and p53 binding data reveal that turnover of p53 binding sites is the major mechanism underlying extensive variation in p53-dependent gene up-regulation. Only a core set of high-confidence genes appears to be directly regulated by p53 in both species. In contrast to up-regulation, p53-induced down-regulation is well conserved between mice and humans and controls cell cycle genes. Here a curated data set is provided that extends the previously established web-atlas at www.targetgenereg.org to assess the p53 response of any human gene of interest and its mouse ortholog. Taken together, the analysis reveals a limited translation potential from mouse models to humans for the p53 GRN.