Protein Names (UNIPROT)

Melanoma-associated antigen 2

Protein function and interaction

MAGEA2 binds to TRIM28, which belongs to the TRIM family of E3 RING ubiquitin ligases. This interaction may enhance ubiquitin ligase activity through recruitment and/or stabilization of the E2 ubiquitin conjugating enzymes at the E3-substrate complex (Doyle et al, 2010 PMID: 20864041).

Coimmunoprecipitation experiments indicate that p53 and MAGE-A2 proteins associate in a cellular context. Further experiments showed that MAGE-A2 interacts strongly with the site-specific DNA binding domain of p53, interfering with the binding of p53 to responsive promoters. Knockdown of MAGE-A expression could affect p53 downstream (p21, PUMA and MDM2) gene expression, but does not affect the levels of expression of the TP53 gene itself. Silencing of MAGE-A expression induces a G1 cell-cycle delay and gives rise to apoptosis-associated effects, as well. Notably, these effects can occur in the absence of genotoxic stress (Marcar et al., 2010 PMID: 21056992).