Trans-splicing repair of mutant p53 suppresses the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo

Reactivation of wild-type p53 (wt-p53) function is an attractive therapeutic approach to p53-defective cancers. An ideal p53-based gene therapy should restore wt-p53 production and reduces mutant p53 transcripts simultaneously. In this study, we described an alternative strategy named as trans-splicing that repaired mutant p53 transcripts in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. The plasmids which encoded a pre-trans-splicing molecule (PTM) targeting intron 6 of p53 were constructed and then transfected into HCC cells carrying p53 mutation. Phenotypic changes of HCC cells induced by p53-PTM were analyzed through cell cycle, cell apoptosis and the expression of p53 downstream target genes. Spliceosome mediated RNA trans-splicing (SMaRT) reduced mutant p53 transcripts and produced functional wt-p53 protein after the delivery of p53-PTM plasmids, which resulted in phenotype correction of HCC cells. In tumor xenografts established by p53-mutated HCC cells, adenovirus encoding p53-PTM induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis and then blocked the growth of tumors in mice. Collectively, our results demonstrated for the first time that mutant p53 transcripts were functionally corrected in p53-defective HCC cells and xenografts using trans-splicing, which indicated the feasibility of using trans-splicing to repair p53 mutation in p53-defective cancers.