Inhibition of Brd4 alleviates renal ischemia/reperfusion injury-induced apoptosis and endoplasmic reticulum stress by blocking FoxO4-mediated oxidative stress

Ischemia/reperfusion injury (I/R) is one of the leading causes of acute kidney injury (AKI) that typically occurs in renal surgeries. However, renal I/R still currently lacks effective therapeutic targets. In this study, we proved that inhibition of Brd4 with its selective inhibitor, JQ1, could exert a protective role in renal I/R injury in mice. Inhibiting Brd4 with either JQ1 or genetic knockdown resulted in reduction of endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS)-associated protein and proapoptotic protein expression both in I/R-induced injury and hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) stimulation in HK-2 cells. H/R-induced apoptosis and ERS depended on oxidative stress in vitro. Moreover, FoxO4, which is involved in the generation of hydrogen peroxide, was up-regulated during H/R stimulation-mediated apoptosis and ERS, and this upregulation could be abolished by Brd4 inhibition. Consistently, FoxO4-mediated ROS generation was attenuated upon inhibition of Brd4 with JQ1 or siRNA against Brd4. Further, the transcriptional activity of FoxO4 was suppressed by PI3K and AKT phosphorylation, which are upstream signals of FoxO4 expression, and were enhanced by Brd4 both in vivo and in vitro. In conclusion, our results proved that Brd4 inhibition blocked renal apoptotic and ERS protein expression by preventing FoxO4-dependent ROS generation through the PI3K/AKT pathway, indicating that Brd4 could be a potential therapeutic target for renal I/R injury.