Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0027819 (neuroblastoma)
 27,800 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Insufficient oxygen and nutrient supply often restrain solid tumor growth, and the hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF) 1 alpha and HIF-2 alpha are key transcription regulators of phenotypic adaptation to low oxygen levels. Moreover, mouse gene disruption studies have implicated HIF-2 alpha in embryonic regulation of tyrosine hydroxylase, a hallmark gene of the sympathetic nervous system. Neuroblastoma tumors originate from immature sympathetic cells, and therefore we investigated the effect of hypoxia on the differentiation status of human neuroblastoma cells. Hypoxia stabilized HIF-1 alpha and HIF-2 alpha proteins and activated the expression of known hypoxia-induced genes, such as vascular endothelial growth factor and tyrosine hydroxylase. These changes in gene expression also occurred in hypoxic regions of experimental neuroblastoma xenografts grown in mice. In contrast, hypoxia decreased the expression of several neuronal/neuroendocrine marker genes but induced genes expressed in neural crest sympathetic progenitors, for instance c-kit and Notch-1. Thus, hypoxia apparently causes dedifferentiation both in vitro and in vivo. These findings suggest a novel mechanism for selection of highly malignant tumor cells with stem-cell characteristics.
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PMID:Hypoxia alters gene expression in human neuroblastoma cells toward an immature and neural crest-like phenotype. 1201 61

Fast-growing solid tumors are usually insufficiently vascularized, leading to areas with necrosis and/or poorly oxygenated cells. Tumor cells adapt to acute hypoxic stress. Central to this adaptation are the hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs), which are degraded at normoxic but become stabilized at hypoxic conditions. Hypoxic (1% O2) neuroblastoma cells downregulate sympathetic nervous system marker genes, whereas neural crest cell markers are upregulated, suggesting that hypoxic tumor cells adopt a less mature phenotype, which in the clinical setting would translate to more aggressive tumors with increased metastatic potential. Here, we compared gene expression patterns in neuroblastoma cells grown at 1%, 5% (a physiologic oxygen level) and 21% O2. At 5% O2, cells developed a weak hypoxic phenotype and HIF-2 alpha, but not HIF-1 alpha, was acutely stabilized. At 1% O2, HIF-2 alpha protein remained present in long-term cultures, while HIF-1 alpha was present only transiently. The stability of the hypoxia-induced dedifferentiated phenotype in cells acutely reoxygenated at either 21% or 5% O2 persisted for at least 24 hr. Genes associated with a differentiated state, like NPY, ChrA and ChrB, were still downregulated and hypoxia-induced genes, like TH and Id2, remained upregulated. Thus, if these culture conditions are viewed as models for acute reoxygenation of metastasizing hypoxic tumor cells, our data suggest that an aggressive hypoxic phenotype persists for 24 hr or more, which might be long enough for the cells to be able to home to secondary sites, in part as a consequence of their immature hypoxic characteristics.
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PMID:Phenotypic persistence after reoxygenation of hypoxic neuroblastoma cells. 1580 Sep 31