London. How does the body respond to hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) and what triggers its defensive response? Oxygen is a key element for survival and it is not surprising that physiological mechanisms that are able to perceive and respond to changes in oxygen tension have evolved. In the cells, the oxygen sensor is a transcription factor called Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF) that can reprogramme the metabolism in response to the decrease in oxygen availability in the intracellular environment. For this reason, the team coordinated by Andrea Vettori and Francesco Argenton of the Department of Biology of the University of Padua has specially designed and generated zebrafish (Danio rerio) who are ideal animals, due to the transparency of their larvae and small size, for the in vivo analysis and study of the activities of the HIF factor, and for screening specific metabolic pathways. The research was published on PNAS. (9Colonne)
