Antibacterial Activity of the p53 Tumor Suppressor Protein - How Strong Is the Evidence?

p53 tumor suppressor is best known from controlling cell cycle, apoptosis, DNA repair, and metabolism, but it also regulates immunity and is able to impede the live cycle of viruses. For this reason these infectious agents encode proteins, which inactivate p53. However, what is less known is that p53 can also be inactivated by human pathogenic bacteria. It is probably not a collateral damage, but specific targeting, because p53 could interfere with their multiplication. The mechanisms of antibacterial activity of p53 are poorly known. However, they can be inferred from the results of high-throughput studies, which identified more than thousand p53-activated genes. As it turns out, many of these genes code proteins, with proven or plausible antibacterial functions like: efficient detection of bacteria by pattern recognition receptors, induction of pro-inflammatory pyroptosis, recruitment of immune cells, direct bactericidal activity and presentation of bacterial metabolites to lymphocytes. Probably there are more antibacterial, p53-regulated functions, which were overlooked because laboratory animals are kept in sterile conditions. In this review we present the outlines of some intriguing antibacterial mechanisms of p53, which await further exploration. Definitely, this area of research deserves more attention, especially in light of the appearance of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains.