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Activating Transcription Factor 2-derived Peptides Alter Resistance of Human Tumor Cell Lines to Ultraviolet Irradiation and Chemical Treatment¹

Ruttenberg Cancer Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029

Activating transcription factor 2 (ATF2) and its kinase, p38, play an important role in the resistance of melanoma to radiation and chemotherapy. Whereas ATF2 up-regulates the expression of tumor necrosis factor , which serves as a survival factor in late-stage melanoma cells, p38 attenuates Fas expression via inhibition of nuclear factor-B. We investigated whether ATF2-derived peptides could be used to alter the sensitivity of human melanoma cells to radiation and chemical treatment. Of four 50-amino acid peptides tested, the peptide spanning amino acids 50–100 elicited the most efficient increase in the sensitivity of human melanoma cells to UV radiation or treatment by mitomycin C, Adriamycin, and verapamil, or UCN-01, as revealed by apoptosis assays. Sensitization by ATF2 peptide was also observed in the MCF7 human breast cancer cells but not in early-stage melanoma or melanocytes, or in in vitro-transformed 293T cells. When combined with an inhibitor of p38 catalytic activity, cells expressing amino acids 50–100 of ATF2 exhibited an increase in the degree of programmed cell death, indicating that combined targeting of ATF2 and p38 kinases is sufficient to induce apoptosis in late-stage melanoma cells. The ability of the peptide to increase apoptosis coincided with increased cell surface expression of Fas, which is the primary death-signaling cascade in these late-stage melanoma cells. Overall, our studies identified a critical domain of ATF2 that may be used to sensitize tumor cells to radiation and chemical treatment-induced apoptosis and that can induce apoptosis when combined with inhibition of ATF2 kinase, p38.

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