HIF

[Novartis] Novartis announced a collaboration with Alnylam to leverage Alnylam’s proprietary siRNA technology to inhibit a target discovered at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, potentially leading to development of a treatment designed to promote the regrowth of functional liver cells and to provide an alternative to transplantation for patients with liver failure.

[Theranostics] A conductive and injectable hydrogel crosslinked by matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-sensitive peptides was rationally constructed to stabilize hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) to recover heart functions after myocardial infarction.

[Adipocyte] The authors provided in vivo evidence that lysosomal acid lipase-deficiency impaired proliferation of endothelial cells in thermogenic adipose tissue.

[Cell Death & Disease] The authors identified a novel long non-coding RNA KDM4A-AS1, which was aberrantly overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues, associated with unfavorable clinical features and poor prognosis of patients. KDM4A-AS1 promoted HCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro and contributed to HCC growth and lung metastasis in vivo.

[Stem Cell Research & Therapy] Human cord blood CD34+ cells were co-cultured with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) wild type or Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α-MSC (4:1) for 72 hours. Then, viability, cell cycle, ROS expression and immunophenotyping of key molecules involved in engraftment were evaluated by flow cytometry in CD34+ cells.

[Cell Death & Disease] Investigators found that interference with GPR120 activity using pharmacological agonist attenuated the severity of the liver injury and mortality of fulminant hepatic failure in mice.