Erythropoiesis is critically dependent on erythropoietin (EPO), a glycoprotein hormone that is regulated by hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). Hepatocytes are the primary source of extrarenal EPO in the adult and express HIF-1 and HIF-2, whose roles in the hypoxic induction of EPO remain controversial. In order to define the role of HIF-1 and HIF-2 in the regulation of hepatic EPO expression, we have generated mice with conditional inactivation of Hif-1α and/or Hif-2α (Epas1) in hepatocytes. We have previously shown that inactivation of the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor pVHL, which targets both HIFs for proteasomal degradation, results in increased hepatic Epo production and polycythemia independent of Hif-1α. Here we show that conditional inactivation of Hif-2α in pVHL-deficient mice suppressed hepatic Epo and the development of polycythemia. Furthermore, we found that physiological Epo expression in infant livers required Hif-2α but not Hif-1α and that the hypoxic induction of liver Epo in anemic adults was Hif-2α dependent. Since other Hif target genes such phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (Pgk) were Hif-1α dependent, we provide genetic evidence that HIF-1 and HIF-2 have distinct roles in the regulation of hypoxia-inducible genes and that EPO is preferentially regulated by HIF-2 in the liver.

In mammals, the liver integrates nutrient uptake and delivery of carbohydrates and lipids to peripheral tissues to control overall energy balance. Hepatocytes maintain metabolic homeostasis by coordinating gene expression programs in response to dietary and systemic signals. Hepatic tissue oxygenation is an important systemic signal that contributes to normal hepatocyte function as well as disease. Hypoxia-inducible factors 1 and 2 (HIF-1 and HIF-2, respectively) are oxygen-sensitive heterodimeric transcription factors, which act as key mediators of cellular adaptation to low oxygen. Previously, we have shown that HIF-2 plays an important role in both physiologic and pathophysiologic processes in the liver. HIF-2 is essential for normal fetal EPO production and erythropoiesis, while constitutive HIF-2 activity in the adult results in polycythemia and vascular tumorigenesis. Here we report a novel role for HIF-2 in regulating hepatic lipid metabolism. We found that constitutive activation of HIF-2 in the adult results in the development of severe hepatic steatosis associated with impaired fatty acid ␤-oxidation, decreased lipogenic gene expression, and increased lipid storage capacity. These findings demonstrate that HIF-2 functions as an important regulator of hepatic lipid metabolism and identify HIF-2 as a potential target for the treatment of fatty liver disease.The liver plays a central role in maintaining overall organism energy balance by controlling carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Hepatocytes coordinate these processes by regulating gene expression programs in response to dietary signals from the portal vein and systemic signals from the hepatic artery. Oxygen is an important systemic signal that modulates metabolic activities and disease in the liver. Under physiologic conditions, an oxygen gradient is established in the liver such that the partial pressure of oxygen in periportal blood is 60 to 65 mm Hg and in the perivenous blood is 30 to 35 mm Hg (17). This oxygen gradient is important for the zonation of metabolic activity in the liver. Because oxygen is an essential electron acceptor for oxidative metabolism, hepatocytes that perform glucose or fatty acid oxidation are located in the aerobic periportal zone, whereas oxygen-independent metabolic functions such as glucose uptake, glycolysis, and fatty acid synthesis are predominately performed by perivenous hepatocytes (16). Patients who experience perivenous hypoxia as a result of heart failure, obstructive sleep apnea, or excessive alcohol use can develop chronic liver injury characterized by steatosis and inflammation (17). Therefore, it is critical that oxygen-signaling pathways in hepatocytes are appropriately integrated into adaptive and/or maladaptive liver injury responses.Hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs) are important components of the cellular oxygen-signaling pathway. In response to low oxygen tensions, HIFs facilitate both oxygen delivery and adaptation to oxygen deprivation by regulating the expression of genes that are i...

The kidney is the main physiologic source of erythropoietin (EPO) in the adult and responds to decreases in tissue oxygenation with increased EPO production. Although studies in mice with liver-specific or global gene inactivation have shown that hypoxia-inducible factor 2 (Hif-2) plays a major role in the regulation of Epo during infancy and in the adult, respectively, the contribution of renal HIF-2 signaling to systemic EPO homeostasis and the role of extrarenal HIF-2 in erythropoiesis, in the absence of kidney EPO, have not been examined directly. Here, we used Cre-loxP recombination to ablate Hif-2␣ in the kidney, whereas Hif-2-mediated hypoxia responses in the liver and other Epo-producing tissues remained intact. We found that the hypoxic induction of renal Epo is completely Hif-2 dependent and that, in the absence of renal Hif-2, hepatic Hif-2 takes over as the main regulator of serum Epo levels. Furthermore, we provide evidence that hepatocyte-derived Hif-2 is involved in the regulation of iron metabolism genes, supporting a role for HIF-2 in the coordination of EPO synthesis with iron homeostasis. (Blood. 2010;116(16): 3039-3048) IntroductionThe glycoprotein erythropoietin (EPO) is essential for the regulation of red blood cell mass in response to changes in tissue oxygenation. EPO stimulates erythropoiesis by promoting erythroid precursor cell viability, proliferation, and differentiation, thus enhancing the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood. Its production is tightly regulated by developmental, tissue-specific, and physiologic cues. 1,2 Lack of Epo in the embryo, where it is produced by hepatocytes, leads to death from cardiac failure and anemia at embryonic day (E)13.5. 3 During late gestation, the site of EPO production switches from the fetal liver to the kidney, where fibroblast-like peritubular interstitial cells become the main physiologic source of EPO synthesis in adults. [4][5][6] Although the liver retains the ability to produce EPO in response to hypoxic stimuli, it does not contribute to the serum EPO pool under normoxic or mild hypoxic conditions. 7-9 Therefore, an impairment of renal EPO synthesis, which is typically associated with advanced chronic kidney failure, results in the development of anemia and is treated by administering recombinant EPO. 2,10 The primary physiologic stimulus of enhanced EPO gene transcription is tissue hypoxia, which can induce a several hundredfold increase in circulating serum EPO levels. 1 Although in vitro studies, using an 18-nucleotide fragment of the oxygen-sensitive 3Ј EPO regulatory element, suggested that hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) regulates EPO in Hep3B cells, 11-13 recent genetic evidence indicates that Hif-2 has an important role in the maintenance of normal serum EPO levels. 14-16 HIF-1 and HIF-2 belong to the PER/arylhydrocarbon-receptor nuclear translocator (ARNT)/single minded family of hypoxia-regulated transcription factors and consist of an oxygen-sensitive ␣ subunit and a constitutively expressed ␤ subunit, also known as ARNT. Bo...

Iron demand in bone marrow increases when erythropoiesis is stimulated by hypoxia via increased erythropoietin (EPO) synthesis in kidney and liver. Hepcidin, a small polypeptide produced by hepatocytes, plays a central role in regulating iron uptake by promoting internalization and degradation of ferroportin, the only known cellular iron exporter. Hypoxia suppresses hepcidin, thereby enhancing intestinal iron uptake and release from internal stores. While HIF, a central mediator of cellular adaptation to hypoxia, directly regulates renal and hepatic EPO synthesis under hypoxia, the molecular basis of hypoxia/HIF-mediated hepcidin suppression in the liver remains unclear. Here, we used a genetic approach to disengage HIF activation from EPO synthesis and found that HIF-mediated suppression of the hepcidin gene (Hamp1) required EPO induction. EPO induction was associated with increased erythropoietic activity and elevated serum levels of growth differentiation factor 15. When erythropoiesis was inhibited pharmacologically, Hamp1 was no longer suppressed despite profound elevations in serum EPO, indicating that EPO by itself is not directly involved in Hamp1 regulation. Taken together, we provide in vivo evidence that Hamp1 suppression by the HIF pathway occurs indirectly through stimulation of EPO-induced erythropoiesis.

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Renal fibrosis and inflammation are associated with hypoxia, and tissue pO2 plays a central role in modulating the progression of chronic kidney disease. Key mediators of cellular adaptation to hypoxia are hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 and -2. In the kidney they are expressed in a cell type-specific manner; to what degree activation of each homolog modulates renal fibrogenesis and inflammation has not been established. To address this issue, we used Cre-loxP recombination to activate or to delete both Hif-1 and Hif-2 either globally or cell type-specifically in myeloid cells. Global activation of Hif suppressed inflammation and fibrogenesis in mice subjected to unilateral ureteral obstruction, while activation of Hif in myeloid cells suppressed inflammation only. Suppression of inflammatory cell infiltration was associated with down-regulation of CC chemokine receptors in renal macrophages. Conversely, global deletion or myeloid-specific inactivation of Hif promoted inflammation. Furthermore, prolonged hypoxia suppressed the expression of multiple inflammatory molecules in non-injured kidneys. Collectively, we provide experimental evidence that hypoxia and/or myeloid cell-specific HIF activation attenuates renal inflammation associated with chronic kidney injury.

Members of the erbB family receptor tyrosine kinases (erbB1, erbB2, erbB3, and erbB4) are overexpressed in a variety of human cancers and represent important targets for the structure-based drug design. Homo-and heterodimerization (oligomerization) of the erbB receptors are known to be critical events for receptor signaling. To block receptor self-associations, we have designed a series of peptides derived from potential dimerization surfaces in the extracellular subdomain IV of the erbB receptors (erbB peptides). In surface plasmon resonance (BIAcore) studies, the designed peptides have been shown to selectively bind to the erbB receptor ectodomains and isolated subdomain IV of erbB2 with submicromolar affinities and to inhibit heregulin-in- erbB2 (neu, HER2) is a member of the epidermal growth factor or HER family of tyrosine kinase receptors that also includes erbB1 (EGFR, 1 HER1), erbB3 (HER3), and erbB4 (HER4) (1-4). Overexpression of erbB receptors has been found in many types of human cancer raising the possibility that receptor-directed therapies may be useful as cancer management strategies. Greater expression of erbB2 on transformed cells than on normal epithelial tissues allows selective targeting of tumor cells using various approaches (5-13). A variety of strategies have also been developed for targeting the erbB1 receptor, including monoclonal antibodies, ligand-linked immunotoxins, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and antisense approaches.Recently, we have reported the design of an anti-erbB2 peptide mimetic, AHNP, derived from the structure of the CDR-H3 loop of the anti-erbB2 monoclonal antibody 4D5 and demonstrated its in vitro and in vivo activities in disabling erbB2 tyrosine kinases similar to the monoclonal antibody (14 -16). We have argued that another interesting approach for disabling erbB receptor activity would be targeting protein-protein interaction surfaces. Because protein-protein interactions play a key role in various mechanisms of cellular growth and differentiation, and viral replication, inhibition of these interactions is a promising novel approach for rational drug design against a wide number of cellular and viral targets (17,18). Synthetic peptides that disrupt protein-protein interactions have been successfully shown to act as inhibitors of HIV-1 protease (19), HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (20), herpes simplex virus ribonucleotide reductase (21), and thymidilate synthase (22). Binding of polypeptide hormones, growth factors, or cytokines to cell surface receptors activates dimerization (oligomerization) of the receptors, which leads to the signal transduction to the interior of the cell (23). Although most of the receptor inhibitors developed to date have been focused on the blockade of receptor-ligand or enzyme-substrate interactions, repression of receptor-receptor interactions that accompany oligomerization might also represent an important target for disabling receptor functioning. This approach has been recently used for the design of peptidic estrogen receptor inhibitors ...

Ubiquitously expressed transcript (UXT) is a prefoldinlike protein that has been suggested to be involved in human tumorigenesis. Here, we have found that UXT is overexpressed in a number of human tumor tissues but not in the matching normal tissues. We demonstrate that UXT is located in human centrosomes and is associated with ␥-tubulin. In addition, overexpression of UXT disrupts centrosome structure. Furthermore, abrogation of UXT protein expression by small interfering RNA knockdown leads to cell death. Together, our findings suggest that UXT is a component of centrosome and is essential for cell viability. We propose that UXT may facilitate transformation by corrupting regulated centrosome functions.