Acquisition of temporal HIF transcriptional activity using a secreted luciferase assay

Abstract

Here we describe a simple method based on secreted luciferase driven by a hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) response element (HRE) that allows the acquisition of dynamic and high-throughput data on HIF transcriptional activity during hypoxia and pharmacological activation of HIF. The sensitivity of the assay allows for the secreted luciferase to be consecutively sampled (as little as 1% of the total supernatant) over an extended time period, thus allowing the acquisition of time-resolved HIF transcriptional activity.