Hypoxia and Metabolism in Metastasis

The hypoxic microenvironment is one of the major features of solid tumors, which regulates cell malignancy in multiple ways. As a response to hypoxia, a large number of target genes involved in cell growth, metabolism, metastasis and immunity are activated in cancer cells. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1), as a heterodimeric DNA-binding complex, is comprised of a constitutively expressed HIF-1β subunit and an oxygen sensitive HIF-1α subunit, thus, adapts to decreased oxygen availability as a transcriptional factor. HIF-1 regulates many genes involved in tumorigenesis. Here, we focus on cancer cell metabolism and metastasis regulated by hypoxia.