Mol. Cell. Biol., Oct 1996, 5221-5231, Vol 16, No. 10
K Gradin, J McGuire, RH Wenger, I Kvietikova, ML fhitelaw, R Toftgard, L Tora, M Gassmann and L Poellinger
Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1 alpha) and the intracellular dioxin
receptor mediate hypoxia and dioxin signalling, respectively. Both proteins
are conditionally regulated basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription
factors that, in addition to the bHLH motif, share a Per- Arnt-Sim (PAS)
region of homology and form heterodimeric complexes with the common
bHLH/PAS partner factor Arnt. Here we demonstrate that HIF-1 alpha required
Arnt for DNA binding in vitro and functional activity in vivo. Both the
bHLH and PAS motifs of Arnt were critical for dimerization with HIF-1
alpha. Strikingly, HIF-1 alpha exhibited very high affinity for Arnt in
coimmunoprecipitation assays in vitro, resulting in competition with the
ligand-activated dioxin receptor for recruitment of Arnt. Consistent with
these observations, activation of HIF-1 alpha function in vivo or
overexpression of HIF-1 alpha inhibited ligand-dependent induction of DNA
binding activity by the dioxin receptor and dioxin receptor function on
minimal reporter gene constructs. However, HIF-1 alpha- and dioxin
receptor-mediated signalling pathways were not mutually exclusive, since
activation of dioxin receptor function did not impair HIF-1 alpha-dependent
induction of target gene expression. Both HIF-1 alpha and Arnt mRNAs were
expressed constitutively in a large number of human tissues and cell lines,
and these steady-state expression levels were not affected by exposure to
hypoxia. Thus, HIF-1 alpha may be conditionally regulated by a mechanism
that is distinct from induced expression levels, the prevalent model of
activation of HIF-1 alpha function. Interestingly, we observed that HIF-1
alpha was associated with the molecular chaperone hsp90. Given the critical
role of hsp90 for ligand binding activity and activation of the dioxin
receptor, it is therefore possible that HIF-1 alpha is regulated by a
similar mechanism, possibly by binding an as yet unknown class of ligands.
Copyright © 1996, American Society for Microbiology
Functional interference between hypoxia and dioxin signal transduction pathways: competition for recruitment of the Arnt transcription factor
Department of Medical Nutrition, Karolinksa Institute, Huddinge, Sweden.
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