Hypoxia (HIF1a) Pathway Products

webinarThe SwitchGear Hypoxia Panel

Hypoxia, low oxygen concentration in cells, is a characteristic of various physiological processes such as the regulation of cell differentiation, blood vessel formation, and wound healing. Hypoxia is also widely associated with diseases such as anemia, diabetes, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, sickle cell disease, and many cancers. Cells under hypoxic stress activate a signaling cascade of hypoxia-responsive genes to aid the cell into either adapting to the low oxygen conditions or undergoing apoptosis. This response to restore cellular homeostasis is primarily initiated and regulated by the family of hypoxia inducible transcription factors (HIF1a).

SwitchGear Genomics offers a comprehensive panel of transfection-ready, cell-based promoter reporter assays to allow you to accurately quantify transcriptional activation and repression in response to hypoxia/HIF pathway activation. In addition, SwitchGear offers UTR reporter assays that measure transcript stability, translational repression, miRNA function.


Applications

The SwitchGear collection of hypoxia-relevant promoter reporters allows you to:

  • Understand the mechanisms by which hypoxia regulated genes are induced or repressed
  • Quantify the functional consequences of transcription factor binding – while many other technologies give a qualitative view of transcription factor level, our promoter reporter assays quantify the effects of transcription factor binding
  • Confirm data from ChIP-chip or ChIP-sequencing experiments
  • Measure the effect of sequence variants and mutagenesis on promoter function
  • Screen for promoter activation or develop activity profiles across the hypoxia signaling pathway for many compounds or conditions in parallel

SwitchGear also offers 3′UTR reporters for studying transcriptional stability, translational repression, and miRNA function. Read more about this technology.


Promoter Reporter Technology
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The Power of the LightSwitch Luciferase Assay System

  • Quantitative: Novel RenSP luciferase fusion technology allows you to measure promoter activity in response to hypoxia pathway activation with industry-leading sensitivity and dynamic range
  • Simple, quick, complete solution: Perform your experiments today through simple transfection of our luciferase reporter constructs using LightSwitch optimized reagents. No cloning, DNA preparation, or reagent optimization is needed. No need for co-transfection of normalizing controls.
  • Comprehensive and verified: Choose from SwitchGear’s complete set of sequence verified and transfection ready hypoxia/HIF targets.
  • Functionally insightful: Learn about the actual effects of transcription factor binding to verify computational predictions and supplement microarray or sequencing data.
  • Cost-effective: Profile promoter activation efficiently across the full hypoxia pathway under a multitude of conditions in parallel.

Additional links

Getting started with SwitchGear promoter constructs

Hypoxia and cancer: Application highlight

Hypoxia is a common trait in tumors, attributable to insufficient vascularization. Cell response to hypoxic stress is primarily mediated through the transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF-1). Low oxygen concentration induces HIF to regulate genes involved in restoring cellular homeostasis such as erythropoietin, glycolytic enzymes, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Understanding the regulation and mechanisms of hypoxia-induced gene expression will provide critical insights into cancer pathogenesis.

Hypoxic conditions in tumors also cause resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy, leading to the recent pharmaceutical interest in anti-hypoxia drug development. Although HIF-1 inhibition in hypoxic tumor cells may confer therapeutic benefits, evaluating the full HIF-1 pathway is critical for efficient screening of small molecules and minimizing off-target effects.