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Factor-inhibiting HIF (FIH) promotes lung cancer progression
Ana García-del Río, Endika Prieto-Fernández, Leire Egia-Mendikute, Asier Antoñana-Vildosola, Borja Jimenez-Lasheras, So Young Lee, Adrián Barreira-Manrique, Samanta Romina Zanetti, Ander de Blas, Paloma Velasco-Beltrán, Alexandre Bosch, Ana M. Aransay, Asis Palazon
Ana García-del Río, Endika Prieto-Fernández, Leire Egia-Mendikute, Asier Antoñana-Vildosola, Borja Jimenez-Lasheras, So Young Lee, Adrián Barreira-Manrique, Samanta Romina Zanetti, Ander de Blas, Paloma Velasco-Beltrán, Alexandre Bosch, Ana M. Aransay, Asis Palazon
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Research Article Cell biology

Factor-inhibiting HIF (FIH) promotes lung cancer progression

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Abstract

Factor-inhibiting HIF (FIH) is an asparagine hydroxylase that acts on hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) to control cellular adaptation to hypoxia. FIH is expressed in several tumor types, but its impact in tumor progression remains largely unexplored. We observed that FIH was expressed on human lung cancer tissue. Deletion of FIH in mouse and human lung cancer cells resulted in an increased glycolytic metabolism, consistent with increased HIF activity. FIH-deficient lung cancer cells exhibited decreased proliferation. Analysis of RNA-Seq data confirmed changes in the cell cycle and survival and revealed molecular pathways that were dysregulated in the absence of FIH, including the upregulation of angiomotin (Amot), a key component of the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway. We show that FIH-deficient tumors were characterized by higher immune infiltration of NK and T cells compared with FIH competent tumor cells. In vivo studies demonstrate that FIH deletion resulted in reduced tumor growth and metastatic capacity. Moreover, high FIH expression correlated with poor overall survival in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Our data unravel FIH as a therapeutic target for the treatment of lung cancer.

Authors

Ana García-del Río, Endika Prieto-Fernández, Leire Egia-Mendikute, Asier Antoñana-Vildosola, Borja Jimenez-Lasheras, So Young Lee, Adrián Barreira-Manrique, Samanta Romina Zanetti, Ander de Blas, Paloma Velasco-Beltrán, Alexandre Bosch, Ana M. Aransay, Asis Palazon

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Figure 3

RNA-Seq analysis reveals transcriptional changes in lung cancer cells upon FIH deletion.

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RNA-Seq analysis reveals transcriptional changes in lung cancer cells up...
(A) Volcano plots showing genes that are differentially expressed in FIH-KO LLC cells compared with WT LLC cells. Red dots represent significantly dysregulated genes (P < 0.05) that have log2 fold changes > 2. Genes corresponding to specific pathways are colored (yellow, hypoxia/cellular response to stress; purple, cell cycle progression; blue, apoptosis; black, Hippo signaling pathway). (B) Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) showing a selection of significantly dysregulated pathways (P < 0.05) in WT versus FIH-KO LLC cells cultured under normoxia (right) or hypoxia (left) for 16 hours. Genes were ranked by fold changes and tested for enrichment using the MSigDB hallmark gene sets. (C) Individual gene set enrichment plots of selected GSEA hallmarks (G2/M checkpoint, E2F targets, Myc targets and IFN-α response pathway) in WT LLC cells in comparison with FIH-KO LLC cells in normoxia (top) or hypoxia (bottom). Normalized enrichment scores (NES) and FDR q values are shown.

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