The oncogenic Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) evades the immune system but has an Achilles heel: its genome maintenance protein EBNA1, which is essential for viral genome maintenance but highly antigenic. EBV has seemingly evolved a system in which the mRNA sequence encoding the glycine-alanine repeats (GAr) of the EBNA1 protein limits its expression to the minimal level necessary for function while minimizing immune recognition. Here, we identify nucleolin (NCL) as a host factor required for this process via a direct interaction with G-quadruplexes formed in GAr-encoding mRNA sequence. Overexpression of NCL enhances GAr-based inhibition of EBNA1 protein expression, whereas its downregulation relieves the suppression of both expression and antigen presentation. Moreover, the G-quadruplex ligand PhenDC3 prevents NCL binding to EBNA1 mRNA and reverses GAr-mediated repression of EBNA1 expression and antigen presentation. Hence the NCL-EBNA1 mRNA interaction is a relevant therapeutic target to trigger an immune response against EBV-carrying cancers.

The tumor suppression activity of p53 is frequently impaired in cancers even when a wild-type copy of the gene is still present, suggesting that a dominant-negative effect is exerted by some of p53 mutants and isoforms. p63 and p73, which are related to p53, have also been reported to be subjected to a similar loss of function, suggesting that a dominant-negative interplay might happen between p53, p63 and p73. However, to which extent p53 hotspot mutants and isoforms of p53, p63 and p73 are able to interfere with the tumor suppressive activity of their siblings as well as the underlying mechanisms remain undeciphered. Using yeast, we showed that a dominant-negative effect is widely spread within the p53/p63/p73 family as all p53 loss-of-function hotspot mutants and several of the isoforms of p53 and p73 tested exhibit a dominant-negative potential. In addition, we found that this dominant-negative effect over p53 wild-type is based on tetramer poisoning through the formation of inactive hetero-tetramers and does not rely on a prion-like mechanism contrary to what has been previously suggested. We also showed that mutant p53-R175H gains the ability to inhibit p63 and p73 activity by a mechanism that is only partially based on tetramerization.