The Central Nervous System-Restricted Transcription Factor Olig2 Opposes p53 Responses to Genotoxic Damage in Neural Progenitors and Malignant Glioma

SummaryHigh-grade gliomas are notoriously insensitive to radiation and genotoxic drugs. Paradoxically, the p53 gene is structurally intact in the majority of these tumors. Resistance to genotoxic modalities in p53-positive gliomas is generally attributed to attenuation of p53 functions by mutations of other components within the p53 signaling axis, such as p14Arf, MDM2, and ATM, but this explanation is not entirely satisfactory. We show here that the central nervous system (CNS)-restricted transcription factor Olig2 affects a key posttranslational modification of p53 in both normal and malignant neural progenitors and thereby antagonizes the interaction of p53 with promoter elements of multiple target genes. In the absence of Olig2 function, even attenuated levels of p53 are adequate for biological responses to genotoxic damage.

► Olig2 promotes survival of neural progenitors under genotoxic stress
► Acetylation of p53 is suppressed by Olig2
► p53 association to its target promoters is affected in the presence of Olig2
► Olig2 requirement for glioma formation is p53 dependent