RNAseq analysis for transcriptomes of ATO treated U937 cell lines expressing 10 type 1 p53 mutants, type-3 p53-R273H, p53 null, or p53 wild-type

To globally evaluate to what extend type-1 p53 mutant transcription activity can be restored by arsenic trioxide (ATO) (compared to wild-type p53), p53-null U937 cells introduced with 10 frequent type-1 p53, type-3 p53-R273H (negative control), empty vector or wild-type p53 were treated with or without 1 μg/mL ATO. mRNA was isolated and then subject to deep sequencing, using Illumina HiSeq. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed using Cutadapt. Results and conclusions: The type-1 p53 mutants are the major cellular targets of ATO in the current cell contexts. The expression profiles of well-established p53 targets in cells expressing wild-type p53 highly correlated with the ones in cells expressing ATO-rescued type-1 mutants, but not those in cells expressing ATO-treated R273H. In cells harboring type-1 mutants, the median expression levels of these targets were elevated by ATO to extents comparable to wild-type p53.