Role of p53 in transcriptional repression of SVCT2

SVCT2, Sodium-dependent Vitamin C Transporter 2, uniquely transports ascorbic acid (also known as vitamin C and ascorbate) into all types of cells. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient that must be obtained through the diet and plasma levels are tightly regulated by transporter activity. Vitamin C plays an important role in antioxidant defenses and is a cofactor for many enzymes that enable hormone synthesis, oxygen sensing, collagen synthesis and epigenetic pathways. Although SVCT2 has various functions, regulation of its expression/activity remains poorly understood. We found a p53-binding site, within the SVCT2 promoter, using a transcription factor binding-site prediction tool. In this study, we show that p53 can directly repress SVCT2 transcription by binding a proximal- (~-185 to -171 bp) and a distal- (~-1800 to -1787 bp) p53-responsive element (PRE), Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays showed that PRE-bound p53 interacts with the corepressor-histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3), resulting in deacetylation of histones Ac-H4, at the proximal promoter, resulting in transcriptional silencing of SVCT2. Overall, our data suggests that p53 is a potent transcriptional repressor of SVCT2, a critical transporter of diet-derived ascorbic acid, across the plasma membranes of numerous essential tissue cell types.