RESEARCH ARTICLE Lack of activity of recombinant HIF prolyl hydroxylases (PHDs) on reported non-HIF substrates Matthew E Cockman1†*, Kerstin Lippl2†, Ya-Min Tian3†, Hamish B Pegg1, William D Figg Jnr2, Martine I Abboud2, Raphael Heilig4, Roman Fischer4, Johanna Myllyharju5‡, Christopher J Schofield2‡, Peter J Ratcliffe1,3‡* 1The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom; 2Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 3Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 4Target Discovery Institute, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 5Oulu Center for Cell-Matrix Research, Biocenter Oulu and Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland Abstract Human and other animal cells deploy three closely related dioxygenases (PHD 1, 2 and 3) to signal oxygen levels by catalysing oxygen regulated prolyl hydroxylation of the transcription factor HIF. The discovery of the HIF prolyl-hydroxylase (PHD) enzymes as oxygen sensors raises a key question as to the existence and nature of non-HIF substrates, potentially transducing other biological responses to hypoxia. Over 20 such substrates are reported. We therefore sought to *For correspondence: characterise their reactivity with recombinant PHD enzymes. Unexpectedly, we did not detect
[email protected] prolyl-hydroxylase activity on any reported non-HIF protein or peptide, using conditions supporting (MEC); robust HIF-a hydroxylation. We cannot exclude PHD-catalysed prolyl hydroxylation occurring under
[email protected] (PJR) conditions other than those we have examined. However, our findings using recombinant enzymes †These authors contributed provide no support for the wide range of non-HIF PHD substrates that have been reported.