Tumor suppressor p53 is a negative regulator in thyroid hormone receptor signaling pathways.
Thyroid hormone nuclear receptors (TRs) are ligand-dependent transcription factors which regulate growth, differentiation, and development. The molecular mechanisms by which TRs mediate these diverse effects are unclear. One emerging hypothesis suggests that TRs could mediate these diverse effects via cooperation with different transcription factors/receptors. Indeed, we have recently shown that the human TR subtype beta1 (h-TRbeta1) interacts with the tumor suppressor p53. p53 is a transcription factor that plays a critical role in cell cycle regulation and tumor development. To assess the physiological relevance of the interaction of h-TRbeta1 with p53, the present study addressed the question as to whether the functions of h-TRbeta1 could be modulated by p53. We first compared the h-TRbeta1-mediated transcriptional activity in two pairs of isogenic cell lines, RKO/RKO E6 and MCF-7/MCF-7 E6. RKO and MCF-7 cells are colon and breast carcinoma cell lines, respectively, that contain p53 but lack TRbeta1. The isogenic RKO E6 and MCF-7 E6 cells are stable clones expressing high levels of papillomavirus type 16 E6 protein. In these cells, the level of p53 protein was lower than the parental cells. The impairment of p53 functions in these E6-containing cells led to an activation of TRbeta1-mediated transcriptional activity. Furthermore, in a growth hormone-producing cell line in which the expression of the growth hormone gene is positively regulated by TRs, overexpression of the wild-type p53 led to repression in the expression of the growth hormone gene. Thus, TRs could cross-talk with p53 in its signaling pathways to regulate gene regulatory functions. The present findings further strengthen the hypothesis that mediation of the pleiotropic effects of T3 requires the cooperation of TRs with a large network of transcription factors.