PIAS3 induction of apoptosis in non-small cell lung cancer cells is p53-independent and has STAT3-independent mediator.

Protein inhibitor of activated STAT3 (PIAS3) is an endogenous inhibitor of STAT3 that negatively regulates STAT3 transcriptional activity and cell growth and demonstrates limited expression in the majority of human squamous cell carcinomas of the lung. In the present study we sought to determine if PIAS3 inhibits cell growth in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines by induction of apoptosis and further determine the dependence of PIAS3 activity on p53 status by using both wild-type and p53-null cells. Our results demonstrate that over-expression of PIAS3 promotes caspase 3 activation and PARP cleavage. Furthermore, the expression of pro-survival family members Bcl-xL and Bcl-2 is decreased. These effects were observed after both transient and regulated expression of exogenous PIAS3 and were independent of p53 status. Furthermore, while p53 can promote apoptosis by inhibition of STAT3 activity, PIAS3 inhibition of STAT3 activity was also p53 independent. Microarray experiments were performed to further investigate the STAT3-dependence of PIAS3-induced apoptosis by comparing the apoptotic gene expression signature induced by PIAS3 over-expression with that induced by STAT3 siRNA. The results showed that a subset of apoptotic genes, including CIDEC and DAPK2, were uniquely expressed only after PIAS3 expression. Thus, PIAS3 may represent a promising lung cancer therapeutic target because of its p53-independent efficacy as well as its potential to synergize with direct STAT3 inhibitors.

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Dabir S, Kluge A, McColl K, Liu Y, Lam M, Halmos B, Wildey G, Dowlati A