Cloning and characterization of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 subunits from Ascaris suum - a parasitic nematode highly adapted to changes of oxygen conditions during its life cycle.

The parasitic nematode Ascaris suum successfully adapts to a significant decrease in oxygen availability during its life cycle by altering its metabolic system dramatically. However, little is known about the regulatory mechanisms of adaptation to hypoxic environments in A. suum. In multicellular organisms, hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), a heterodimeric transcription factor composed of HIF-1α and HIF-1β subunits, is a master regulator of genes involved in adaptation to hypoxia. In the present study, cDNAs encoding HIF-1α and HIF-1β were cloned from A. suum and characterized. The full-length A. suum hif-1α and hif-1β cDNAs contain open reading frames encoding proteins with 832 and 436 amino acids, respectively. In the deduced amino acid sequences of A. suum HIF-1α and HIF-1β, functional domains essential for DNA-binding, dimerization, and oxygen-dependent prolyl hydroxylation were conserved. The interaction between A. suum HIF-1α and HIF-1β was confirmed by the yeast two-hybrid assay. Both A. suum hif-1α and hif-1β mRNAs were expressed at all stages examined (fertilized eggs, third-stage larvae, lung-stage larvae, young adult worms, and adult muscle tissue), and most abundantly in the aerobic free-living third-stage larvae, followed by a gradual decrease after infection of the host. hif-1 mRNA transcription was not sensitive to the oxygen environment in either third-stage larvae or adult worms (muscle tissue), and was regulated in a stage-specific manner. High expression of hif-1 mRNAs in third-stage larvae suggests its contribution to pre-adaptation to a hypoxic environment after infection of their host. Sequence analysis of 5'-upstream regions of mitochondrial complex II (succinate-ubiquinone reductase/quinol-fumarate reductase) genes, which show stage-specific expression and play an important role in oxygen adaptation during the life cycle, revealed that all subunits except for the adult-type flavoprotein subunit (Fp) possess putative hypoxia-responsive elements (HREs), suggesting that they are hif-1 target genes.