title: RTEF-1, a novel transcriptional stimulator of vascular endothelial growth factor in hypoxic endothelial cells.
abstract: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an angiogenic growth factor known to be up-regulated in ischemic heart and hypoxic endothelial cells. However, the transcriptional regulation of VEGF in hypoxia-induced angiogenesis is not fully understood. Transcriptional enhancer factor-1 (TEF-1) is a transcriptional factor family that can regulate many genes expressed in cardiac and skeletal muscle cells by binding to myocyte-specific chloramphenicol acetyltransferase heptamer elements in the promoters of these genes. In this study, we demonstrated that related TEF-1 (RTEF-1), a member of the TEF-1 family, is up-regulated in hypoxic endothelial cells. Overexpression of RTEF-1 increases VEGF promoter activity and VEGF expression. Sequential deletion and site-directed mutation analyses of the VEGF promoter demonstrated that a GC-rich region containing four Sp1 response elements, located between -114 and -50, was essential for RTEF-1 function. This region is beyond the hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha binding site and does not consist of M-CAT-related elements. By electrophoretic mobility shift assay, RTEF-1 was found to interact with the first Sp1 residue (-97 to -87) of the four consecutive Sp1 elements. Binding activity of RTEF-1 to VEGF promoter is also confirmed by chromatin immunoprecipitation. In addition, induction of VEGF promoter activity by RTEF-1 results in an increase of angiogenic processes including endothelial cells proliferation and vascular structure formation. These results indicate that RTEF-1 acts as a transcriptional stimulator of VEGF by regulating VEGF promoter activity through binding to Sp1 site. In addition, RTEF-1-induced VEGF promoter activity was enhanced in a hypoxic condition, indicating that RTEF-1 may play an important role in the regulation of VEGF under hypoxia.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Jue-Lon
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Shie
authors.forename: Guifu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Jiaping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Fen-Fen
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Roger J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Laham
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Oettgen
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D015687:Cell Hypoxia; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D016329:Sp1 Transcription Factor; D000091262:TEA Domain Transcription Factors; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology*; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D016329:Sp1 Transcription Factor; D000091262:TEA Domain Transcription Factors; C057182:TEAD1 protein, human; D014157:Transcription Factors; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A