Nuclear p53-mediated repression of autophagy involves PINK1 transcriptional down-regulation

p53 is a transcription factor that is implicated in the control of both apoptotic and autophagic cell death. This tumor suppressor elicits both pro-autophagic and anti-autophagic phenotypes depending of its intracellular localization. The ability of p53 to repress autophagy has been exclusively associated to its cytoplasmic localization. Here, we show that transcriptional activity of p53 also contributes to autophagy down-regulation. Thus, nuclear p53 controls PINK1, a key protein involved in the control of mitophagy, by repressing its promoter activity, protein and mRNA levels, ex-vivo and in vivo. We establish that deletion of an identified p53 responsive element on PINK1 promoter impacts p53-mediated PINK1 transcriptional repression and we demonstrate a p53-PINK1 physical interaction by chromatin immunoprecipitation. Accordingly, we show that only nuclear p53 accounts for its ability to repress PINK1 gene transcription. Further, we demonstrate ex-vivo and in vivo that p53 invalidation in human cells increases LC3 maturation as well as optineurin and NDP52 autophagy receptors expression and down-regulates TIM23, TOM20 and HSP60 mitophagy markers. Importantly, this phenotype is mimicked by TP53 invalidation in mice brain. Finally, by combining pharmacological and genetic approaches, we show that the p53-mediated negative regulation of autophagy is PINK1-dependent. Thus pifithrin-alpha-mediated blockade of p53 transcriptional activity enhances LC3 maturation and reduces p62, TIM23, TOM20 and HSP60 protein levels. This pifithrin-alpha-associated pro-mitophagy phenotype is fully abolished by PINK1 depletion. This data unravels a novel pathway by which nuclear p53 can repress autophagy/mitophagy that could underlie important dysfunctions in both neurodegenerative and cancer diseases.