HIF-transcribed p53 chaperones HIF-1α

Chronic hypoxia is associated with a variety of physiological conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, ischemia/reperfusion injury, stroke, diabetic vasculopathy, epilepsy and cancer. At the molecular level, hypoxia manifests its effects via activation of HIF-dependent transcription. On the other hand, an important transcription factor p53, which controls a myriad of biological functions, is rendered transcriptionally inactive under hypoxic conditions. p53 and HIF-1 alpha are known to share a mysterious relationship and play an ambiguous role in the regulation of hypoxia-induced cellular changes. Here we demonstrate a novel pathway where HIF-1 alpha transcriptionally upregulates both WT and MT p53 by binding to five response elements in p53 promoter. In hypoxic cells, this HIF-1 alpha-induced p53 is transcriptionally inefficient but is abundantly available for protein-protein interactions. Further, both WT and MT p53 proteins bind and chaperone HIF-1 alpha to stabilize its binding at its downstream DNA response elements. This p53-induced chaperoning of HIF-1 alpha increases synthesis of HIF-regulated genes and thus the efficiency of hypoxia-induced molecular changes. This basic biology finding has important implications not only in the design of anti-cancer strategies but also for other physiological conditions where hypoxia results in disease manifestation.