Acute and chronic hypoxia affects HIF-1α mRNA levels in sea bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax)

Aquatic hypoxia is a frequent event and in fish a complex set of physiological and biochemical alterations are employed to cope with this environmental stress. Many of these adjustments depend to a large extent on changes in the expression of genes that encode for physiologically relevant proteins....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Aquaculture 2008-07, Vol.279 (1), p.150-159
Main Authors: Terova, Genciana, Rimoldi, Simona, Corà, Samuela, Bernardini, Giovanni, Gornati, Rosalba, Saroglia, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal aquaculture
Animal productions
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Aquaculture
Biological and medical sciences
complementary DNA
Dicentrarchus labrax
dissolved oxygen
fish culture
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gene expression
gene expression regulation
General aspects
Hypoxia
hypoxia-inducible factor-1
Marine
marine fish
messenger RNA
molecular cloning
Real-time PCR
Sea bass
Sea water ecosystems
sequence analysis
Synecology
transcription (genetics)
transcription factors
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Summary:Aquatic hypoxia is a frequent event and in fish a complex set of physiological and biochemical alterations are employed to cope with this environmental stress. Many of these adjustments depend to a large extent on changes in the expression of genes that encode for physiologically relevant proteins. Genes that are induced by hypoxia appear to share a common mode of transcriptional regulation. This induction depends upon activation of a transcription factor, the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), which is composed of α and β subunits. In this study we report first on the molecular cloning and characterization of HIF-1α in sea bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax). The full-length sea bass cDNA for HIF-1α was isolated and deposited in the GenBank with accession no. DQ171936. It consists of 3317 base pairs (bp) carrying a single open-reading frame that encompasses 2265 bp of the coding region and 1052 bp of the 3′ UTR. The predicted sea bass HIF-1α protein (755 amino acids) shows a high level of conservation at the bHLH (basic helix–loop–helix domain), PAS A/B (Per-ARNT-Sim A/B domain), N-TAD (N-terminal transactivation domain), and C-TAD (C-terminal transactivation domain), whereas only few variations are found at the ODD (oxygen-dependent degradation domain) regions among vertebrates. We then utilized the real-time PCR technology to monitor dynamic changes in levels of HIF-1α mRNA in response to acute and chronic hypoxic stress. The number of HIF-1α mRNA copies was significantly increased in liver tissue in response to both acute (1.9 mg/L, dissolved oxygen for 4 h) and chronic (4.3 mg/l, DO for 15 days) hypoxia in sea bass whereas it remained unchanged in fish exposed to hyperoxic (DO 13.5 ± 1.2 mg/L, 155% saturation) conditions. This is the first study to investigate the behaviour of HIF-1α gene transcripts during hypoxia in a representative of marine, hypoxia-sensitive species.
ISSN:0044-8486
1873-5622
DOI:10.1016/j.aquaculture.2008.03.041