Hypoxia tolerance in animals: biology and application

Abstract Many invertebrates and ectothermic vertebrates successfully cope with a fluctuating supply of ambient oxygen—and consequently, a highly variable tissue oxygenation—through increasing their antioxidant barriers. During chronic deprivation of oxygen, however, the hypometabolic defense mode of the fruit fly Drosophila, the hypoxia‐induced behavioral hypothermia of the crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus, and the production of ethanol during anoxia by the crucian carp Carassius carassius all indicate that these animals are also capable of utilizing a suite of genetic and physiological defenses to survive otherwise lethal reductions in tissue oxygenation. Normally, much of an organism’s gene response to hypoxia is orchestrated via the hypoxia‐inducible transcription factor HIF. Recent developments expand our view of HIF function even further by highlighting regulatory roles for HIF in the hypometabolism of insects, in the molting and the normoxic immune response of crustaceans, and in the control—via th...