Received for publication September 20, 2006.
Revised September 19, 2006.
Accepted for publication September 25, 2006.

Baffled by Bafilomycin: An Anti-cancer Agent that Induces HIF-1 Expression (Relates to artcile by Lim, et al., FastForward 28 Aug 2006)

Abstract

In an article presented in this issue of Molecular Pharmacology, Lim et al. investigate the anti-cancer effect of bafilomycin, an inhibitor of the vacuolar ATPase. The authors report that bafilomycin inhibits cell cycle progression and tumor growth by inducing the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) 1 and the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21^CIP1, a surprising result because HIF-1 overexpression is associated with tumor growth and angiogenesis in preclinical models and with increased patient mortality in clinical studies. However, the authors demonstrate that bafilomycin-induced HIF-1 expression leads to increased CIP1 gene expression but does not lead to increased expression of other HIF-1-regulated genes that promote tumor progression.

Key words: Regulation - transcriptional, Transcription targets