From Hokkaido U: Enhancement of in vitro cell motility and invasiveness of human malignant pleural mesothelioma cells through the HIF-1α-MUC1 pathway

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23879962

Cancer Lett. 2013 Jul 20. pii: S0304-3835(13)00540-5. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2013.07.020. [Epub ahead of print]

Enhancement of in vitro cell motility and invasiveness of human malignant pleural mesothelioma cells through the HIF-1α-MUC1 pathway.

Goudarzi H, Iizasa H, Furuhashi M, Nakazawa S, Nakane R, Liang S, Hida Y, Yanagihara K, Kubo T, Nakagawa K, Kobayashi M, Irimura T, Hamada JI.

Source

Division of Stem Cell Biology, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University, Kita-15, Nishi-7, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0815, Japan.

Abstract

In this study, we examined the effects of hypoxia on the malignancy of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cell lines, and found 1) hypoxia enhanced motility and invasiveness of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cells; 2) this phenomenon resulted from increased expression of sialylated MUC1 through the activation of HIF-1 pathway; 3) two HIF-binding sites located in the promoter region of MUC1 were important for MUC1 transactivation under hypoxia. These findings are useful for better understanding molecular mechanisms of aggressive behavior of MPM cells and for targeting them in the clinical therapies for MPM patients.