 Hypoxia has been shown to induce transcriptional upregulation of BNIP3 through an HIF1-dependent pathway in a p53-independent manner in HeLa cells, human skeletal muscle cells, and adult rat cardiomyocytes.Using BNIP3 phosphomimetics in HEK 293 cells, researchers found that phosphorylation of BNIP3’s C-terminus is necessary to prevent mitochondrial damage and promote cell survival by allowing a significant amount of autophagy to occur without the induction of cell death.Factors like cAMP and cGMP levels, calcium availability and growth factors like IGF and EGF can affect this kinase activity.