Chemokine receptor CXCR4 downregulated by von Hippel–Lindau tumour suppressor pVHL

Organ-specific metastasis is governed, in part, by interactions between chemokine receptors on cancer cells and matching chemokines in target organs. For example, malignant breast cancer cells express the chemokine receptor CXCR4 and commonly metastasize to organs that are an abundant source of the CXCR4-specific ligand stromal cell-derived factor-1alpha (ref. 1). It is still uncertain how an evolving tumour cell is reprogrammed to express CXCR4, thus implementing the tendency to metastasize to specific organs. Here we show that the von Hippel-Lindau tumour suppressor protein pVHL negatively regulates CXCR4 expression owing to its capacity to target hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) for degradation under normoxic…

• NF
  Novartis Foundation
• SN
  Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung