Hypoxia-inducible factor cell non-autonomously regulates C. elegans stress responses and behavior via a nuclear receptor
Abstract
The HIF (hypoxia-inducible factor) transcription factor is the master regulator of the metazoan response to chronic hypoxia. In addition to promoting adaptations to low oxygen, HIF drives cytoprotective mechanisms in response to stresses and modulates neural circuit function. How most HIF targets act in the control of the diverse aspects of HIF-regulated biology remains unknown. We discovered that a HIF target, the C. elegans gene cyp-36A1, is required for numerous HIF-dependent processes, including modulation of gene expression, stress resistance, and behavior. cyp-36A1 encodes a cytochrome P450 enzyme that we show controls expression of more than a third of HIF-induced genes. CYP-36A1 acts cell non-autonomously by regulating the activity of the nuclear hormone receptor NHR-46, suggesting that CYP-36A1 functions as a biosynthetic enzyme for a hormone ligand of this receptor. We propose that regulation of HIF effectors through activation of cytochrome P450 enzyme/nuclear receptor signaling pathways could similarly occur in humans.
Data availability
Sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession code GSE108283.
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The HIF hypoxia-response pathway drives hormonal signaling to promote stress resistance and modulate behavior of C. elegansPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE108283).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (GM024663)
- Corinne L Pender
- H Robert Horvitz
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Corinne L Pender
- H Robert Horvitz
National Institutes of Health (T32GM007287)
- Corinne L Pender
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2018, Pender & Horvitz
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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