Post-transcriptional control of hif-1α gene expression: role of the natural antisense transcript “ahif”

This work was focused on defining the role of the natural antisense aHIF, encoded by the antisense strand of the hif-1alpha gene. In particular, the interest was focused on the possible transcriptional or post-transcriptional role of aHIF in hif-1alpha mRNA and protein expression regulation in HeLa and A549 cancer cell lines treated with hypoxia or DNA-damaging agents. In this work we hypothesize that aHIF is a negative regulator of hif-1alpha expression and that it may also represent a novel mechanism in p53-mediated hif-1alpha expression regulation.