Nuclear Hormone Receptor NHR-49 acts in parallel with HIF-1 to promote hypoxia adaptation in Caenorhabditis elegans

  1. Kelsie RS Doering
  2. Xuanjin Cheng
  3. Luke Milburn
  4. Ramesh Ratnappan
  5. Arjumand Ghazi
  6. Dana L Miller
  7. Stefan Taubert  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of British Columbia, Canada
  2. University of Washington, United States
  3. University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States

Abstract

Caenorhabditis elegans Nuclear Hormone Receptor NHR-49, an orthologue of mammalian Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor alpha (PPARα). We show that nhr-49 is required for animal survival in hypoxia and is synthetic lethal with hif-1 in this context, demonstrating that these factors act in parallel. RNA-seq analysis shows that in hypoxia nhr-49 regulates a set of genes that are hif-1-independent, including autophagy genes that promote hypoxia survival. We further show that Nuclear Hormone Receptor nhr-67 is a negative regulator and Homeodomain-interacting Protein Kinase hpk-1 is a positive regulator of the NHR-49 pathway. Together, our experiments define a new, essential hypoxia response pathway that acts in parallel with the well-known HIF-mediated hypoxia response.

Data availability

RNA-seq data have been deposited at NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) under the record GSE166788.All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and Supplementary Tables. Raw data points from each N are shown in figures where-ever possible. See transparent reporting form for details.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Kelsie RS Doering

    Graduate Program in Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Xuanjin Cheng

    Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Luke Milburn

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Ramesh Ratnappan

    Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7055-9043
  5. Arjumand Ghazi

    Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Dana L Miller

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3983-0493
  7. Stefan Taubert

    Graduate Program in Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    For correspondence
    taubert@cmmt.ubc.ca
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2432-7257

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R56AG066682)

  • Arjumand Ghazi

BC Children's Hospital Foundation

  • Stefan Taubert

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2018-05133)

  • Stefan Taubert

National Institutes of Health (R01AG051659)

  • Arjumand Ghazi

Cancer Research Society (22727)

  • Stefan Taubert

BC Children's Hospital Foundation

  • Kelsie RS Doering

Canada Research Chairs

  • Stefan Taubert

National Institutes of Health (R01AG044378)

  • Dana L Miller

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

  • Kelsie RS Doering

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT-153199)

  • Stefan Taubert

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2022, Doering et al.

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.

Metrics

  • 2,356
    views
  • 293
    downloads
  • 19
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Kelsie RS Doering
  2. Xuanjin Cheng
  3. Luke Milburn
  4. Ramesh Ratnappan
  5. Arjumand Ghazi
  6. Dana L Miller
  7. Stefan Taubert
(2022)
Nuclear Hormone Receptor NHR-49 acts in parallel with HIF-1 to promote hypoxia adaptation in Caenorhabditis elegans
eLife 11:e67911.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67911

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67911

Further reading

    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Carmina Lichauco, Eric J Foss ... Antonio Bedalov
    Research Article

    The association between late replication timing and low transcription rates in eukaryotic heterochromatin is well known, yet the specific mechanisms underlying this link remain uncertain. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the histone deacetylase Sir2 is required for both transcriptional silencing and late replication at the repetitive ribosomal DNA (rDNA) arrays. We have previously reported that in the absence of SIR2, a de-repressed RNA PolII repositions MCM replicative helicases from their loading site at the ribosomal origin, where they abut well-positioned, high-occupancy nucleosomes, to an adjacent region with lower nucleosome occupancy. By developing a method that can distinguish activation of closely spaced MCM complexes, here we show that the displaced MCMs at rDNA origins have increased firing propensity compared to the nondisplaced MCMs. Furthermore, we found that both activation of the repositioned MCMs and low occupancy of the adjacent nucleosomes critically depend on the chromatin remodeling activity of FUN30. Our study elucidates the mechanism by which Sir2 delays replication timing, and it demonstrates, for the first time, that activation of a specific replication origin in vivo relies on the nucleosome context shaped by a single chromatin remodeler.

    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Liza Dahal, Thomas GW Graham ... Xavier Darzacq
    Research Article

    Type II nuclear receptors (T2NRs) require heterodimerization with a common partner, the retinoid X receptor (RXR), to bind cognate DNA recognition sites in chromatin. Based on previous biochemical and overexpression studies, binding of T2NRs to chromatin is proposed to be regulated by competition for a limiting pool of the core RXR subunit. However, this mechanism has not yet been tested for endogenous proteins in live cells. Using single-molecule tracking (SMT) and proximity-assisted photoactivation (PAPA), we monitored interactions between endogenously tagged RXR and retinoic acid receptor (RAR) in live cells. Unexpectedly, we find that higher expression of RAR, but not RXR, increases heterodimerization and chromatin binding in U2OS cells. This surprising finding indicates the limiting factor is not RXR but likely its cadre of obligate dimer binding partners. SMT and PAPA thus provide a direct way to probe which components are functionally limiting within a complex TF interaction network providing new insights into mechanisms of gene regulation in vivo with implications for drug development targeting nuclear receptors.