Serine/threonine kinase 31 promotes PDCD5‐mediated apoptosis in p53‐dependent human colon cancer cells

Although programed cell death 5 (PDCD5) is an important protein in p53‐mediated proapoptotic signaling, very little is known about PDCD5‐related cell death. In this study, we report that serine/threonine kinase 31 (STK31) interacts with PDCD5, which maintains the stability of PDCD5. STK31 overexpression significantly activated PDCD5 stabilization and p53‐mediated apoptosis in response to etoposide (ET). However, STK31 knockdown did not enhance apoptosis by ET treatment. Moreover, when STK31 was depleted, PDCD5 inhibited the activation of the p53 signaling pathway with ET, indicating that the PDCD5–STK31 network has an essential role in p53 activation. Importantly, STK31 activated the p53 signaling pathway by genotoxic stress through positive regulation of PDCD5‐mediated apoptosis. We thus demonstrated that overexpression of STK31 greatly inhibited tumorigenic growth and increased the chemosensitivity of HCT116 human colorectal carcinoma cells. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the STK31–PDCD5 complex network regulates apoptosis of cancer cells, and STK31 is a positive apoptosis regulator that inhibits tumorigenesis of colon cancer cells by inducing PDCD5‐mediated apoptosis in response to genotoxic stress.