RESULTS
v-ATPase inhibition triggers hypoxia-inducible factor-mediated responseWith the goal of identifying signaling events caused by impaired organelle acidification, we analyzed several transcriptome datasets of cells treated with the v-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin. These datasets include bafilomycin treatment of HeLa cells (GSE16870) (Straud et al., 2010), colon carcinoma cells (GSE47836) (Durrbaum et al., 2014) and retinal pigment epithelial cells (GSE60570) (Santaguida et al., 2015). We performed multi-dimensional transcriptome analysis in these datasets, aiming at the identification of signaling pathways, networks and transcription factors (Murdoch et al., 2016;Raimundo et al., 2012;Raimundo et al., 2009;Schroeder et al., 2013;Tyynismaa et al., 2010;West et al., 2015;Yambire et al., 2019). We reasoned that those transcription factors (TF) showing similar behavior in the three datasets of bafilomycin-treated cells would be the main regulators of the response to loss of acidification, independently of the cell type. Therefore, we crossed the TF list associated with each dataset, to determine which of those were involved in all three datasets, and found eight common TF, of which seven were predicted as active and one as repressed ( Figure 1A). These TF are associated with autophagy (NUPR1), cholesterol homeostasis (SREBF1, SREBF2), hypoxia response (HIF-1α and EPAS1, which is also known as HIF-2α) and diverse stress responses (p53, myc, FoxO3a), and form a highly interconnected network ( Figure 1B). To determine which biological processes were associated with these TF, and identify which of them were most upstream, we performed a pathway analysis using Metascape, and found that the most affected processes dealt with cellular response to hypoxia ( Figure 1C).The major coordinator of the cellular reponse to hypoxia is the transcription factor hypoxiainducible factor-1α (Majmundar et al., 2010), which is included in the list of TFs responding to bafilomycin. Furthermore, HIF-2α (EPAS1), whose activation mechanism is similar to HIF-1α, is also part of the TF list. The HIF transcription factors function as heterodimers of a regulated α-subunit and the constitutive β subunit (Majmundar et al., 2010). The α subunits are regulated post-translationally by the prolyl hydroxylases. These enzymes are dioxygenases of the α-ketoglutarate-dependent superfamily, and hydroxylate HIF-1α and HIF-2α in the presence of O2, Fe 2+ and α-ketoglutarate (Majmundar et al., 2010). Hydroxylated HIF-1α and HIF-2α are then recognized by the ubiquitin ligase VHL and targeted to the proteasome for degradation. Notably, the protein levels of HIF-1α were increased in bafilomycin (Baf)-treated fibroblasts ( Figure 1D). A similar result was obtained in cells treated with a different inhibitor of the lysosomal v-ATPase, saliphenylhalamide (henceforth, saliphe [or Sal in figures]) ( Figure 1D). Accumulation of HIF-1α can be caused by decreased function of the prolyl hydroxylases or decreased levels of O2 or VHL (Raimundo et al., 2011). Because the...