Fig. 1

Dose responses of p53 dynamics to A Etoposide, B Nutlin-3a, and C 5-Fluouracil (5-FU) vary between drugs and cancer cell types. Left panel: Pathway diagrams of key regulatory components of the p53 pathway known to mediate the respective drug response. Middle panel: Still cell images of p53 fluorescence from the p53-Venue reporter in A549 cells at the indicated drug concentrations. Still images were cropped from time-lapse movies. Time (unit: hour) is indicated at the top right corner of each image. Right panel: Representative single-cell trajectories of p53 dynamics in the nucleus quantified from the p53-Venus fluorescence in the five cancer cell lines, including A549, U-2 OS, A375, MCF7, and 769-P. p53 dynamics in response to the different drug concentrations are color coded as shown on the figure. Cells were treated with the respective drug at time 0 and tracked for 48 to 60 h or till cell death occurred. The abrupt end of some p53 trajectories before 48 h, especially under high-drug concentrations, corresponds to the time of death