Description | Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed
cancer in men and the second leading cause of cancer death.
Hypoxia is an environmental stimulus that plays an important
role in the development and cancer progression especially for
solid tumors. The key regulator under hypoxic conditions is
stabilized hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α. In the present
study, immune-fluorescent staining, siRNAs, qRT-PC, immunoblotting, cell migration and invasion assays were carried
out to test typical epithelial to mesenchymal transition under
hypoxia and the key regulators of this process in PC3, a human
prostate cancer cell line. Our data demonstrated that hypoxia
induces diverse molecular, phenotypic and functional changes
in prostate cancer cells that are consistent with EMT. We
also showed that a cell signal factor such as HIF-1α, which
might be stabilized under hypoxic environment, is involved in
EMT and cancer cell invasive potency. The induced hypoxia
could be blocked by HIF-1α gene silencing and reoxygenation
of EMT in prostate cancer cells, hypoxia partially reversed
accompanied by a process of mesenchymal-epithelial reverting
transition (MErT). EMT might be induced by activation of
HIF-1α-dependent cell signaling in hypoxic prostate cancer
cells. | en_US |