Hypoxia modulates EWS-FLI1 transcriptional signature and enhances malignant properties of Ewings tumor cells in vitro

Hypoxia is an important condition in the tumor cell microenvironment and approximately 1-1.5% of the genome is transcriptionally responsive to hypoxia with hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) as a major mediator of transcriptional activation. Tumor hypoxia is associated with a more aggressive phenotype of many cancers in adults, but data on pediatric tumors are scarce. By immunohistochemical analysis, HIF-1 expression was readily detectable in 18/28 primary Ewings sarcoma family tumors (ESFT), a group of highly malignant bone-associated tumors in children and young adults, which encouraged us to study the effect of hypoxia on ESFT cell lines in vitro.

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Aryee DN, Niedan S, Kauer M, Schwentner R, Bennani-Baiti IM, Ban J, Muehlbacher K, Kreppel M, Walker RL, Meltzer P, Poremba C, Kofler R, Kovar H