Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2009 Aug 27:11:e26.
doi: 10.1017/S1462399409001173.

Targeting the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) pathway in cancer

Evon Poon  1 , Adrian L Harris, Margaret Ashcroft
Affiliations
Review

Targeting the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) pathway in cancer

Evon Poon et al. Expert Rev Mol Med. .

Abstract

The central component of hypoxia sensing in the cell is the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) transcriptional complex. HIF activity is deregulated in many human cancers, especially those that are highly hypoxic. Hypoxic tumour cells are usually resistant to radiotherapy and most conventional chemotherapeutic agents, rendering them highly aggressive and metastatic. Overexpression of HIF-alpha, the regulatory subunit of HIF, is associated with increased vascular density, severity of tumour grade, treatment failure and a poor prognostic outcome with conventional therapies. Therefore HIF is an attractive, although challenging, therapeutic target, and several different strategies have been developed to target HIF directly or indirectly in recent years. This review outlines the preclinical and clinical advances in this arena and discusses which cancers may benefit from HIF-targeted therapy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources