Metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) is highly upregulated in cancer cells with metastatic potential; however, the molecular mechanism by which MTA1 increases the metastatic potential of cancer cells is far from clear. We characterized the functional consequences of MTA1 overexpression on p53-induced apoptosis of cancer cells. MTA1 was associated with p53 in a co-immunoprecipitation assay. MTA1 also had deacetylation activity on p53 in human non-small cell lung cancer cells H1299 and human hepatoma cells SK-Hep1. MTA1 attenuated the transactivation and p21 induction by p53. Moreover, MTA1 expression decreased p53-mediated apoptosis. These results indicate that MTA1 inhibits p53-induced apoptosis by deacetylation of p53, which might be related to the increased metastatic potential of cancer cells with high MTA1 expression.

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