Hypoxia and cytoplasmic alkalinization upregulate growth hormone expression in lymphocytes

We report here that culture of lymphoid cells under hypoxic conditions showed an increase in both luciferase expression from a GH-promoter luciferase construct and the levels of lymphocyte GH. The effect was mimicked by treatment of cells with cobalt chloride consistent with a specific oxygen-sensing mechanism. We identified a putative hypoxia response element (HRE) in the GH promoter at the region −176 bp to −172 bp that contains a copy of the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (Hif-1) binding motif (5′-ACGTG-3′). The results also showed that culture of primary rat spleen cells with different doses of TMA induced a dose-dependent increase in lymphocyte GH by Western blot analysis. Greater levels of GH are induced in T cell-enriched populations compared to B cell-enriched populations after treatment with CoCl2 or TMA. Our results suggest that the stressful cellular conditions likely to occur at sites of inflammation or tumor growth may induce the synthesis of lymphocyte GH.