Yale researchers have made a discovery that changes conventional thinking about the role that oxygen plays in the growth of tumors—an area of cancer research that has been intensely studied in recent years.

The results, from the lab of Andre Levchenko, the John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering, are published in Cell Systems. Other groups collaborating on this study were directed by Chi V. Dang (Johns Hopkins University) and Kshitiz (University of Connecticut).

When tumors start running out of oxygen, they can switch on hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1alpha)—a transcription factor, which is a protein that controls the activity of genes. As a result of HIF-1alpha activation, the expression of hundreds of genes can change and dramatically alter the behavior of cancer cells. Although the increase in HIF-1alpha is thought to be steady, the new study led by Levchenko discovered that the levels of this molecule can also repeatedly rise and fall in small groups of cells, particularly in areas of high cell density. The effects of this oscillation are profound, as it allows cancer cells starving for oxygen to resume division and growth. It can also promote pro-cancer genes and inhibit anti-cancer genes… Continue reading.