Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells exposed to cisplatin display ATM-dependent phosphorylation of the most predominant TP63 isoform (⌬Np63␣), leading to its activation as a transcription factor. Here, we found that the phospho⌬Np63␣ protein binds to the genomic promoter of RPN13 through the TP63-responsive element. We further found that the phospho-⌬Np63␣ protein associates with other transcription factors (DDIT3 (also known as CHOP), NF-Y, and NF-B), activating RPN13 gene transcription. Furthermore, cisplatin-induced and phospho-⌬Np63␣-dependent RPN13 gene transcription leads to NOS2 degradation. Finally, we show that RPN13 knockdown by siRNA essentially rescues NOS2 from cisplatin-dependent inactivation. These data provide a novel mechanism for the phospho-⌬Np63␣-dependent regulation of NOS2 function in cells upon cisplatin treatment, contributing to the cell death pathway of tumor cells.Misfolding and aggregation of proteins may play an important part in the pathogenesis of cancer because cells utilize a physiologic aggresome pathway targeting various proteins into proteasome-dependent degradation in response to stress (1-4). There is emerging evidence that inhibiting the aggresome pathway leads to accumulation of misfolded proteins and to cell death (apoptosis or autophagy) in tumor cells (1-4). One of these misfolded proteins, inducible NOS2, was shown to be targeted into an aggresome/proteasome pathway, which leads to termination of NO production by NOS2 (5-8). NOS2 plays a critical role in massive NO production in a variety of cell types under physiologic and pathophysiologic conditions (9 -13). Understanding the molecular and cellular processes responsible for controlling NO production by NOS2 is critical for devising therapeutic strategies for many pathologic conditions, including cancer (14 -20).We previously found that the NAP110 (NOS2-associated protein of 110 kDa; also known as ADRM1 (adhesion regulatory molecule 1) or RPN13 (regulatory particle non-ATPase subunit 13)) forms protein-protein complexes with NOS2. This interaction modulates NOS2 activity by blocking its homodimerization (21, 22) and likely targeting NOS2 into a membrane fraction of cells, as reported by others (23). RPN13 is predominantly expressed as a non-glycosylated 42-kDa protein and is the ortholog of the yeast proteasome subunit . Furthermore, RPN13 functions as a novel 19 S proteasome cap-associated protein, acting as a receptor for ubiquitin, and recruits the deubiquitinating enzyme UCH37 to the 26 S proteasome (24 -27).Although RPN13 gene expression can be potentially induced by IFN␥ in gastric cancer cells, its transcriptional regulatory machinery is largely unknown (28). We thus undertook the study of transcription factors (TFs) 2 implicated in RPN13 gene regulation in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cells exposed to cisplatin, the most used agent in chemotherapy for human cancers (29 -32). Among a few of the TFs controlling RPN13 gene transcription, we found TP63 (tumor protein 63).The TP53 homolog TP...