Cancer cell migration and invasion involves temporal and spatial regulation of actin cytoskeleton reorganization, which is regulated by the WASP family of proteins such as N-WASP (Neural- Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome Protein). We have previously shown that expression of N-WASP was increased under hypoxic conditions. In order to characterize the regulation of N-WASP expression, we constructed an N-W...

High altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) susceptibility is associated with EGLN1 polymorphisms, we hypothesized that HAPE-susceptible (HAPE-S, had HAPE episode in past) subjects may exhibit abnormal HIF1α levels in normoxic conditions. We measured HIF1α levels in HAPE-S and HAPE resistant (HAPE-R, no HAPE episode) individuals with similar pulmonary functions. Hemodynamic responses were also measure...

Dysregulation of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors HIF-1α and HIF-2α correlates with poor prognosis in human cancers; yet, divergent and sometimes opposing activities of these factors in cancer biology have been observed. Adding to this complexity is that HIF-1α apparently possesses tumor-suppressing activities, as indicated by the loss-of-function mutations or even homozygous deletion of...

Factors regulating nucleotide excision repair probably contribute to the heterogenous response of advanced stage lung cancer patients to drugs such as cisplatin. Studies to identify the genes in the nucleotide excision repair pathway most closely associated with resistance to cisplatin have not been conclusive. We hypothesized that Xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group A (XPA), because of...

Hypoxia affects many physiologic processes during early stages of mammalian ontogeny, particularly placental and vascular development. In the adult, the hypoxic bone marrow microenvironment plays a role in regulating hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function. HSCs are generated from the major vasculature of the embryo, but whether the hypoxic response affects the generation of these HSCs is as yet...

HIF1α and NFkB are two transcription factors very frequently activated in tumors and involved in tumor growth, progression, and resistance to chemotherapy. In fact, HIF1α and NFkB together regulate transcription of over a thousand genes that, in turn, control vital cellular processes such as adaptation to the hypoxia, metabolic reprograming, inflammatory reparative response, extracellular matri...

The generation of functional arterial endothelial cells (aECs) from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) holds great promise for vascular tissue engineering. However, the mechanisms underlying their generation and the potential of aECs in revascularizing ischemic tissue are not fully understood. Here, we observed that hypoxia exposure of mouse ESCs induced an initial phase of HIF1α-mediated upregulation...

The neuroprotective effect of baicalein is generally attributed to inhibition of 12/15-lipoxygenase (12/15-LOX) and suppression of oxidative stress, but recent studies showed that baicalein also activates hypoxia-inducible factor-α (HIF1α) through inhibition of prolyl hydrolase 2 (PHD2) and activation of the phosphatidylinositide-3 kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway. Yet, the significance and ...

Localized hypoxia in solid tumors activates transcriptional programs that promote the metastatic transformation of cells. Like hypoxia-inducible hyper-vascularization, loss of the retinoblastoma protein (Rb) is a trait common to advanced stages of tumor progression in many metastatic cancers. However, no link between the role of Rb and hypoxia-driven metastatic processes has been established. W...

The oncoprotein c-Myc plays an important role in regulating glycolysis under normoxia; yet, in cancer cells, HIF1α, which is essential for driving glycolysis under hypoxia, is often up-regulated even in the presence of oxygen. The relationship between these two major regulators of the Warburg effect remains to be fully defined. Here we demonstrate that regulation of a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA...