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Immunology

Oxygen and the inflammatory cell

Nature volume 422, pages 675–676 (2003)Cite this article

The discovery that a single protein allows certain immune cells both to respond to low oxygen levels and to induce inflammation may provide a new target for drugs to treat diseases characterized by excessive inflammation.

Infected tissues, wounds, rheumatic joints, and parts of tumours that have outgrown their blood supply would seem to have little in common. Yet such sites share two features: they have lower concentrations of oxygen than healthy tissues (they are 'hypoxic'), and they are infiltrated by leukocytes, major cell types of the innate immune system. Writing in Cell, Cramer and colleagues1 propose that a single protein mediates both the response of these cells to hypoxia and their ability to participate in inflammation — a coordinated immune response to tissue injuries such as those mentioned above2. The protein, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), regulates the expression of at least 30 genes when oxygen levels are low3. Cramer et al. show that HIF-1α also controls several key aspects of inflammation: the redness and swelling of injured tissues, and the ability of leukocytes to enter these sites. It is striking that a single molecule should emerge as a master regulator in two such diverse and significant settings as hypoxia and inflammation.

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Figure 1: Factors that may control, or be controlled by, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in inflammatory sites with low oxygen levels.

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  1. the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Graduate Programs in Immunology and Molecular Biology, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, 1300 York Avenue, New York, 10021, New York, USA

    Carl Nathan

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Correspondence to Carl Nathan.

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Nathan, C. Oxygen and the inflammatory cell. Nature 422, 675–676 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/422675a

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