title: Tight control of hypoxia-inducible factor-α transient dynamics is essential for cell survival in hypoxia.
abstract: Intracellular signaling involving hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) controls the adaptive responses to hypoxia. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that intracellular signals encode temporal information. Thus, the dynamics of protein levels, as well as protein quantity and/or localization, impacts on cell fate. We hypothesized that such temporal encoding has a role in HIF signaling and cell fate decisions triggered by hypoxic conditions. Using live cell imaging in a controlled oxygen environment, we observed transient 3-h pulses of HIF-1α and -2α expression under continuous hypoxia. We postulated that the well described prolyl hydroxylase (PHD) oxygen sensors and HIF negative feedback regulators could be the origin of the pulsatile HIF dynamics. We used iterative mathematical modeling and experimental analysis to scrutinize which parameter of the PHD feedback could control HIF timing and we probed for the functional redundancy between the three main PHD proteins. We identified PHD2 as the main PHD responsible for HIF peak duration. We then demonstrated that this has important consequences, because the transient nature of the HIF pulse prevents cell death by avoiding transcription of p53-dependent pro-apoptotic genes. We have further shown the importance of considering HIF dynamics for coupling mathematical models by using a described HIF-p53 mathematical model. Our results indicate that the tight control of HIF transient dynamics has important functional consequences on the cross-talk with key signaling pathways controlling cell survival, which is likely to impact on HIF targeting strategies for hypoxia-associated diseases such as tumor progression and ischemia.
authors.affiliation: From the Centre for Cell Imaging, Institute of Integrative Biology, and.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bagnall
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leedale
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: David G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Spiller
authors.forename: Michael R H
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Kieran J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Sharkey
authors.forename: Rachel N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Bearon
authors.forename: Violaine
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sée
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015687:Cell Hypoxia / Q000502:physiology; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000502:physiology; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D051795:Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1, alpha Subunit / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D064799:Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-Proline Dioxygenases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000099162:Endothelial PAS Domain-Containing Protein 1
chemical_list: D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D051795:Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1, alpha Subunit; D064799:Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-Proline Dioxygenases; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53; D000099162:Endothelial PAS Domain-Containing Protein 1; C497442:HIF1A protein, human; C495901:TP53 protein, human; C490190:EGLN1 protein, human
keywords: Cell Death; Hypoxia; Hypoxia-inducible Factor; Imaging; Mathematical Modeling; Negative Feedback Loop; Prolyl Hydroxylase; p53