Many amino acid substitutions in a hypoxia-inducible transcription factor (HIF)-1alpha-like peptide cause only minor changes in its hydroxylation by the HIF prolyl 4-hydroxylases: substitution of 3,4-dehydroproline or azetidine-2-carboxylic acid for the proline leads to a high rate of uncoupled 2-oxoglutarate decarboxylation.

Three human prolyl 4-hydroxylases (P4Hs) regulate the hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs) by hydroxylating a Leu-Xaa-Xaa-Leu-Ala-Pro motif. We report here that the two leucines in the Leu-Glu-Met-Leu-Ala-Pro core motif of a 20-residue peptide corresponding to the sequence around Pro(564) in HIF-1alpha can be replaced by many residues with no or only a modest decrease in its substrate properties or in some cases even a slight increase. The glutamate and methionine could be substituted by almost any residue, eight amino acids in the former position and four in the latter being even better for HIF-P4H-3 than the wild-type residues. Alanine was by far the strictest requirement, because no residue could fully substitute for it in the case of HIF-P4H-1, and only serine or isoleucine, valine, and serine did this in the cases of HIF-P4Hs 2 and 3. Peptides with more than one substitution, having the core sequences Trp-Glu-Met-Val-Ala-Pro, Tyr-Glu-Met-Ile-Ala-Pro, Ile-Glu-Met-Ile-Ala-Pro, Trp-Glu-Met-Val-Ser-Pro, and Trp-Glu-Ala-Val-Ser-Pro were in most cases equally as good or almost as good substrates as the wild-type peptide. The acidic residues present in the 20-residue peptide also played a distinct role, but alanine substitution for any six of them, and in some combinations even three of them, had no negative effects. Substitution of the proline by 3,4-dehydroproline or l-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, but not any other residue, led to a high rate of uncoupled 2-oxoglutarate decarboxylation with no hydroxylation. The data obtained for the three HIF-P4Hs in various experiments were in most cases similar, but in some cases HIF-P4H-3 showed distinctly different properties.