Abstract 677: Bi-directional crosstalk between the HIF and AHR transcription factors in clear cell kidney cancer
Authors: Lafleur Véronique N. , Halim Silvia , Ratcliffe Peter J. , Mole David R. 
Published: June 2022

Hypoxia is a key feature of the solid tumour microenvironment, in which it is associated with poor prognosis and resistance to therapy. Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) is the central mediator of cellular responses to hypoxia and drives a transcriptional program with central roles in tumorigenesis. Clear cell renal cell cancers (ccRCC) exhibit the most direct and profound upregulation of the HIF pathway - through bi-allelic inactivation of the VHL tumour suppressor, a ubiquitin ligase that targets HIF-alpha subunits for degradation under normal oxygenated conditions. HIF-alpha proteins are members of the bHLH-PAS family and interact with HIF-1beta (also known as ARNT) to form functional heterodimers binding chromatin. However, the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), another bHLH-PAS protein that dimerises with HIF-1beta, is also up-regulated in ccRCC, raising the possibility of crosstalk between these two transcriptional pathways. Previous studies support an antagonistic relationship between HIF and AHR, with evidence of a context-dependent and gene-specific crosstalk. Here, we investigate the pan-genomic and precise relationship between the HIF and AHR transcription factors in ccRCC. Using immunoprecipitation, we show direct competition for HIF-1beta binding between the HIF-alpha and AHR proteins in renal cancer cell lines. Pan-genomic analysis of HIF-1alpha, HIF-2alpha, HIF-1beta and AHR chromatin binding by ChIP-seq analysis reveals a widespread competitive interaction between HIF and AHR. In RCC4 cells, this interaction is bidirectional, with induction of HIF leading to a reduction in AHR binding, while induction of AHR reduces binding of both HIF-1alpha and HIF-2alpha to chromatin. However, this competition is diminished at sites bound by both HIF and AHR, indicating a cooperative interaction between the two transcription factors in cis. Thus, while the HIF-alpha and AHR proteins compete for the common binding partner HIF-1beta, they appear to form a cooperative interaction when bound to neighbouring sites on chromatin. Linking these findings to changes in gene expression by RNA-seq analysis, we show the global downstream effects of the competition between HIF and AHR, but also reveal a degree of overlap and cooperativity between their transcriptional programs. Furthermore, we provide evidence of this antagonistic relationship in ccRCC tumours (TCGA database), in which we observe a negative correlation between HIF and AHR target gene expression. These findings shed light on the complex crosstalk between the HIF and AHR transcriptional pathways, which encompasses both a widespread inhibitory interaction and specific cooperative events and highlight a role for AHR in modifying the HIF transcriptional output in ccRCC.

Citation Format: Véronique N. Lafleur, Silvia Halim, Peter J. Ratcliffe, David R. Mole. Bi-directional crosstalk between the HIF and AHR transcription factors in clear cell kidney cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 677.