Cancer Stem Cells: From an Insight into the Basics to Recent Advances and Therapeutic Targeting

Figure 4

Role of HIFs in CSCs. Under hypoxia, HIF-1 is formed after the dimerization of HIF-1α with HIF-1β and binds to the HRE (HIF-responsive element) present at the DNA. This binding results in the transcription of the targeted genes (HK1, PGK1, TP11, and BNIP3) (depicted in pink boxes) and regulates the various cellular processes like survival, angiogenesis, apoptosis, invasion, metastasis, metabolism, therapeutic resistance, and DNA repair.