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Publication

HIF-1alpha dysfunction in diabetes.

Authors Thangarajah H, Vial IN, Grogan RH, Yao D, Shi Y, Januszyk M, Galiano RD, Chang EI, Galvez MG, Glotzbach JP, Wong VW, Brownlee M, Gurtner GC Submitted By Geoffrey Gurtner on 3/31/2010 Status Published Journal Cell cycle (Georgetown, Tex.) Year 2010 Date Published 1/1/2010 Volume : Pages 9 : 75 - 79 PubMed Reference 20016290 Abstract Diabetic wounds are a significant public health burden, with slow or nonhealing diabetic foot ulcers representing the leading cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputation in developed countries. These wounds heal poorly as a result of compromised blood vessel formation in response to ischemia. We have recently shown that this impairment in neovascularization results from a high glucose-induced defect in transactivation of hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1alpha), the transcription factor regulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression. HIF-1 dysfunction is the end result of reactive oxygen species-induced modification of its coactivator p300 by the glycolytic metabolite methylglyoxal. Use of the iron chelator-antioxidant deferoxamine (DFO) reversed these effects and normalized healing of humanized diabetic wounds in mice. Here, we present additional data demonstrating that HIF-1alpha activity, not stability, is impaired in the high glucose environment. We demonstrate that high glucose-induced impairments in HIF-1alpha transactivation persist even in the setting of constitutive HIF-1alpha protein overexpression. Further, we show that high glucose-induced hydroxylation of the C-terminal transactivation domain of HIF-1alpha (the primary pathway regulating HIF-1alpha/p300 binding) does not alter HIF-1alpha activity. We extend our study of DFO's therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of impaired wound healing by demonstrating improvements in tissue viability in diabetic mice with DFO-induced increases in VEGF expression and vascular proliferation. Since DFO has been in clinical use for decades, the potential of this drug to treat a variety of ischemic conditions in humans can be evaluated relatively quickly.

Investigators with authorship
Name Institution Geoffrey Gurtner Stanford University

Complications
All ComplicationsBioinformatics BoneCardiomyopathy CardiovascularGastro-Intestinal (GI) NephropathyNeuropathy & Neurocognition Pediatric Endocrinology Retinopathy UropathyWound Healing

Genes
Symbol Description Ep300 E1A binding protein p300 Hif1a hypoxia inducible factor 1, alpha subunit Notch1 Notch gene homolog 1, (Drosophila) Vegfa vascular endothelial growth factor A