HIF-1α and Multiple Sclerosis: A Case Not Yet Proven

Material below summarizes the article Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1α in Astrocytes and/or Myeloid Cells Is Not Required for the Development of Autoimmune Demyelinating Disease, published on March 30, 2015, in eNeuro and authored by Natacha Le Moan, Kim M. Baeten, Victoria A. Rafalski, Jae Kyu Ryu, Pamela E. Rios Coronado, Catherine Bedard, Catriona Syme, Dimitrios Davalos, and Katerina Akassoglou.

In biomedical research, as in many aspects of life, things are not always as simple as they first seem. It’s easy to start barking up the wrong tree. Our recent work exposed one of those “trees” in multiple sclerosis (MS): We found that a specific protein called hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, or HIF-1α, is likely not a main culprit in MS. However, we did learn a lot about what HIF-1α does in disease processes in the nervous system.

About the Contributor

Katerina Akassoglou, PhD

Katerina Akassoglou is a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, and a professor in the department of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. She has pioneered studies in the investigation of vascular and immune mechanisms in neurologic diseases and, in particular, the role of the blood clotting factors in CNS autoimmunity, trauma, and neurodegeneration.