Regulating the Expression of HIF-1 alpha or lncRNA: Potential Directions for Cancer Therapy

Previous studies have shown that tumors under a hypoxic environment can induce an important hypoxia-responsive element, hypoxia-induced factor-1 alpha (HIF-1 alpha), which can increase tumor migration, invasion, and metastatic ability by promoting epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in tumor cells. Currently, with the deeper knowledge of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), more and more functions of lncRNAs have been discovered. HIF-1 alpha can regulate hypoxia-responsive lncRNAs under hypoxic conditions, and changes in the expression level of lncRNAs can regulate the production of EMT transcription factors and signaling pathway transduction, thus promoting EMT progress. In conclusion, this review summarizes the regulation of the EMT process by HIF-1 alpha and lncRNAs and discusses their relationship with tumorigenesis. Since HIF-1 alpha plays an important role in tumor progression, we also summarize the current drugs that inhibit tumor progression by modulating HIF-1 alpha.