Differentiated embryo chondrocyte plays a crucial role in DNA damage response via transcriptional regulation under hypoxic conditions

Tumor hypoxia contributes to a biologically aggressive phenotype and therapeutic resistance. Recent studies have revealed that hypoxia reduces expression of several DNA damage recognition and repair (DRR) genes via both hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-independent and -dependent pathways, and this induced genomic instability in cancer cells. We show here that one of the HIF-target genes—differentiated embryo chondrocyte (DEC)—plays a role in DNA damage response via transcriptional repression. Comprehensive gene expression and database analyses have revealed systemic repression of DNA-DRR genes in cancer and non-cancer cells under hypoxic conditions. Hypoxic repression in typical cases was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR and promoter reporter experiments, and knockdown experiments indicated the critical role of DEC2 in such repression. Assessment of histone H2AX phosphorylation revealed that recognition and repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) induced by bleomycin or γ-ray irradiation were attenuated; moreover, Cleaved Caspase-3 levels were decreased with pre-conditioning under hypoxia: opposing phenomena were ascertained by knockdown of DEC2. Finally, pre-conditioning under hypoxia decreased the sensitivity of cancer cells to DSBs, and knockdown of DEC2 increased γ-ray sensitivity. These data imply that a critical reduction of DNA-DRR occurs via DEC-dependent transcriptional repression and suggest that DEC is a potential molecular target for anti-cancer strategies.