Description
We and others have previously shown that glomerular endothelial cells and podocytes express hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs). HIFs bind to hypoxia response elements in target genes, such as vascular endothelial growth factor, which is continually produced by podocytes throughout life. To further assess function of HIFs in podocyte biology, podocin-Cre mice were mated with floxed von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) mice to selectively delete VHL, a component of an E3 ligase complex responsible for degradation of HIFs in normoxia.