Inhibition of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) is a recently approved cancer treatment strategy, and as such there is a pressing need to understand how regulators of HIF might affect tumour growth under physiological conditions. Xin Lu and Peter Ratcliffe have collaborated to study factor-inhibiting HIF (FIH), an enzymatic inhibitor of HIF, to understand how it functions under physiological conditions.
Jingyi Ma and co-workers within the Lu and Ratcliffe research groups identify FIH as a key regulator of immune homeostasis and a suppressor of B cell lymphomagenesis throughout the physiological aging process. FIH deficiency in the host or in myeloid cells alone creates a tumour-supportive tumour microenvironment to promote cancer cell growth.
For more detail, please read the full paper in PNAS.