Puma- and Caspase9-mediated apoptosis is dispensable for p53-driven neural crest-based developmental defects

Inappropriate activation of the p53 transcription factor is thought to contribute to the developmental phenotypes in a range of genetic syndromes. Whether p53 activation drives these developmental phenotypes by triggering apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, or other p53 cellular responses, however, has remained elusive. As p53 hyperactivation in embryonic neural crest cells (NCCs) drives a number of phenotypes, including abnormal craniofacial and neuronal development, we investigate the basis for p53 action in this context. We show that p53-driven developmental defects are associated with the induction of a robust pro-apoptotic transcriptional signature. Intriguingly, however, deleting Puma or Caspase9, which encode key components of the intrinsic apoptotic pathway, does not rescue craniofacial, neuronal or pigmentation defects triggered by p53 hyperactivation in NCCs. Immunostaining analyses for two key apoptosis markers confirm that deleting Puma or Caspase9 does indeed impair p53-hyperactivation-induced apoptosis in NCCs. Furthermore, we demonstrate that p53 hyperactivation does not trigger a compensatory dampening of cell cycle progression in NCCs upon inactivation of apoptotic pathways. Together, our results indicate that p53-driven craniofacial, neuronal and pigmentation defects can arise in the absence of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, suggesting that p53 hyperactivation can act via alternative pathways to trigger developmental phenotypes.