Cited by 338Telomeres, Telomerase, and SenescenceCancer-related Molecular PathwaysGenetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms

A Two-Stage, p16 INK4A - and p53-Dependent Keratinocyte Senescence Mechanism That Limits Replicative Potential Independent of Telomere Status

Open access
Rheinwald, James G., Hahn, William C., Ramsey, Matthew R., Wu, Jenny Y., Guo, Zongyou, Tsao, Hensin, De Luca, Michele, Catricalà, Caterina +1 more·2002·Molecular and Cellular Biology

Abstract

With increasing frequency during serial passage in culture, primary human keratinocytes express p16(INK4A) (p16) and undergo senescence arrest. Keratinocytes engineered to express hTERT maintain long telomeres but typically are not immortalized unless, by mutation or other heritable event, they avoid or greatly reduce p16 expression. We have confirmed that keratinocytes undergo p16-related senescence during growth in culture, whether in the fibroblast feeder cell system or in the specialized K-sfm medium formulation, and that this mechanism can act as a barrier to immortalization following hTERT expression. We have characterized the p16-related arrest mechanism more precisely by interfering specifically with several regulators of cell cycle control. Epidermal, oral mucosal, corneal limbal, and conjunctival keratinocytes were transduced to express a p16-insensitive mutant cdk4 (cdk4(R24C)), to abolish p16 control, and/or a dominant negative mutant p53 (p53DD), to abolish p53 function. Expression of either cdk4(R24C) or p53DD alone had little effect on life span, but expression of both permitted cells to divide 25 to 43 population doublings (PD) beyond their normal limit. Keratinocytes from a p16(+/-) individual transduced to express p53DD alone displayed a 31-PD life span extension associated with selective growth of variants that had lost the wild-type p16 allele. Cells in which both p53 and p16 were nonfunctional divided rapidly during their extended life span but experienced telomere erosion and ultimately ceased growth with very short telomeres. Expression of hTERT in these cells immortalized them. Keratinocytes engineered to express cdk4(R24C) and hTERT but not p53DD did not exhibit an extended life span. Rare immortal variants exhibiting p53 pathway defects arose from them, however, indicating that the p53-dependent component of keratinocyte senescence is telomere independent. Mutational loss of p16 and p53 has been found to be a frequent early event in the development of squamous cell carcinoma. Our results suggest that such mutations endow keratinocytes with extended replicative potential which may serve to increase the probability of neoplastic progression.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1128/mcb.22.14.5157-5172.2002

Cites

78 of 78 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Primary human fibroblasts and epithelial cells express increasing levels of p16 during culture.

    “Primary human fibroblasts and epithelial cells also express increasing levels of p16 during culture (Reznikoff et al., 1996; Brenner et al., 1998; Rheinwald et al., 2002; Benanti and Galloway, 2004).”

    From Senescent cells, tumor suppression, and organismal aging: good citizens, bad neighbors (2005) · cites this paper as Rheinwald et al., 2002

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 79 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. [12]Brown, J. P., W. Wei, and J. M. Sedivy. 1997. Bypass of senescence after disruption of p21CIP1/WAF1 gene in normal diploid human fibroblasts. Science 277:831-834. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. [25]Howley, P. M., and D. R. Lowy. 2001. Papillomaviruses and their replication, p. 2198-2229. In D. M. Knipe and P. M. Howley (ed.), Virology. Lippincott, Philadelphia, Pa.
  3. [55]Rheinwald, J. G., and H. Green. 1975. Serial cultivation of strains of human epidermal keratinocytes: the formation of keratinizing colonies from single cells. Cell 6:331-343. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. [61]Shapiro, G. I., C. D. Edwards, M. E. Ewen, and B. J. Rollins. 1998. p16INK4A participates in a G1 arrest checkpoint in response to DNA damage. Mol. Cell. Biol. 18:378-387. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. [70]Walker, G. J., B. G. Gabrielli, M. Castellano, and N. K. Hayward. 1999. Functional reassessment of P16 variants with a transfection-based assay. Int. J. Cancer 82:305-312. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. [72]Wei, W., R. M. Hemmer, and J. M. Sedivy. 2001. Role of p14ARF in replicative and induced senescence of human fibroblasts. Mol. Cell. Biol. 21:6748-6757. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. [73]Weinstein, G. D., and E. J. Van Scott. 1965. Autoradiographic analysis of turnover times of normal and psoriatic epidermis. J. Investig. Dermatol. 45:257-262. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Rheinwald, J. G., Hahn, W. C., Ramsey, M. R., Wu, J. Y., Guo, Z., Tsao, H., De Luca, M., Catricalà, C., & O'Toole, K. M.
Affiliations
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
  • Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Laboratory of Tissue Engineering, Istituto Dermatopatico dell'Immacolata
  • San Gallicano Hospital
  • Department of Dermatology
Corresponding author
Rheinwald, James G.
Venue
Molecular and Cellular Biology
Published
2002-07
Volume
22
Issue
14
Pages
5157-5172
ISSN
  • 0270-7306 (ISSN-L)
  • 1098-5549
OpenAlex
W2116236493
Cited by
338
References
79
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 20
FWCI
18.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Molecular and Cellular Biology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • IRIS UNIMORE (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • National Cancer Institute (K01CA094223, CA94223)
  • National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (R01DE013178, P01DE012467)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Telomeres, Telomerase, and Senescence
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer-related Molecular Pathways
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Aging › Genetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms
Keywords
keratinocyte senescence, p16INK4a, p53, replicative senescence, hTERT, cell immortalization, CDK4, dominant-negative p53, telomere shortening, squamous cell carcinoma, cell cycle regulation, lifespan extension
MeSH terms
Cell Division, Cells, Cultured, Culture Media, DNA-Binding Proteins, Humans, Mutation, Proto-Oncogene Proteins, Keratinocytes, Genes, p53, Tumor Suppressor Protein p53, Telomere, Cellular Senescence, Cyclin-Dependent Kinases, Telomerase, Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p16, Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 4

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review