Determination of the prognostic potential of hypoxia induced genes (HIF and GLUT1) in breast cancer patients

• Grant number: 18/06355-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2019
• End date: March 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Beatriz da Costa Aguiar Alves Reis
• Grantee: Glauco Sérgio Avelino de Aquino
• Host Institution: Centro Universitário Saúde ABC. Fundação do ABC. Santo André , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The maintenance of growth and progression of the tumor cell requires high bioenergetics expenditure. The most efficient cellular process of energy generation is glucose metabolism; despite proper glucose uptake, not all cells have at their disposal the adequate supply of oxygen for their metabolism. Hypoxia is the term used to describe oxygen deficiency in some tissues. Tumor cells are particularly prone to hypoxia due to their high density and poor vascularization, which limits their oxygen supply. It is known that cells under hypoxia need a 19 greater glucose uptake than those in normoxia, which causes glucose-carrying proteins (GLUT) - essential for the elimination of acidic products of glycolysis and acidification of the tumor extracellular space - to be superexpressed in tumor cells. The expression of GLUT1 and is influenced by hypoxia-induced factors (HIF), a highly conserved family of hypoxia-activated transcription factors that regulate the effects of cellular oxygen sensors and a series of genes encoding glycolytic pathway proteins. Clinically, HIF-1 and GLUT1 are associated with increased distant metastases and worse prognosis in a number of tumors. In this project, we propose the study of the expression of these markers in serial collections of peripheral blood of patients with breast cancer under chemotherapeutic treatment in order to verify their potential prognosis in liquid biopsies, as well as in samples of tumor tissue and blood from healthy donors.