A pleiotropic EPAS1 enhancer mediating Tibetan adaptation to hypoxia is active in adipocytes

Abstract

In response to hypoxic stress at high altitudes, variation at the EPAS1 locus has experienced strong selection in Tibetans. Functional dissection of the selection signals at this locus identified ENH5, an enhancer within the adaptive haplotype that has a blunted response to hypoxic stress in Tibetans. ENH5 was shown to be pleiotropic in several tissues related to hypoxia response, suggesting that a possible mechanism behind the strong selection signatures could be adaptive pleiotropy. Tibetans not only experience hypoxic conditions, but also cold temperatures due to the altitude and climate of the Tibetan Plateau. However, it is unclear whether cold temperatures affect ENH5 activity possibly contributing to the selective pressure at this locus. Here, we further characterized the role of ENH5 in subcutaneous white adipose tissue, an important tissue type that regulates body temperature in response to cold temperatures by releasing stored fat as heat through a process called thermogenesis. In this work, we investigated the role of ENH5 in adipocytes using ENH5 knockout mice (ENH5 KO), which phenocopy the reduced activity of the Tibetan allele. We show that ENH5 KO mice at normoxia and room temperature do not have significant differences in organismal phenotypes related to adiposity and metabolism compared to WT mice on a high fat diet. However, we detected effects of ENH5 conditional on thermogenic stimulation and hypoxia exposure, independently, in adipocytes cultured in vitro. Under either of these conditions, ENH5 KO has stronger differential expression of key genes involved in thermogenesis activity and adipocyte differentiation compared to WT. This differential response to thermogenic stimulation expands on the pleiotropic effects of the Tibetan ENH5 allele(s), in addition to those previously shown in well-established hypoxia-responsive tissues. Our results raise the possibility that pleiotropic effects of ENH5 may implicate unforeseen mechanisms, such as cellular energetics and thermogenesis, possibly contributing to the phenotypic adaptation to high altitude in Tibetans.