Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1633845

Hypoxia and activation of hypoxia inducible factor alpha (HIF-1α) as influencers of inflammatory helper T cells in autoimmune diseasea link between cancer and autoimmunity

Provisionally accepted
Giovanni AlmanzarGiovanni Almanzar1*Juan Carlos AlarconJuan Carlos Alarcon2Ruth GarzonRuth Garzon3Ana Maria NavarroAna Maria Navarro4Alejandro Ondo-MéndezAlejandro Ondo-Méndez5Martina PrelogMartina Prelog1
  • 1University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
  • 2Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics, Leiden, Netherlands
  • 3Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
  • 4Fundacion Universitaria Ciencias de la Salud, Bogota, Colombia
  • 5Universidad del Rosario, Bogota, Colombia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

As a part of the tumor microenvironment, hypoxia is an important hallmark in the tumor progression. Hypoxia is a condition in which the oxygen supply is not sufficient to sustain the cell demand. In addition to its known impact in tumor progression, hypoxia seems to play a principal role in the generation and evolution of several autoimmune diseases. Both tumor and autoimmune diseases can be modulated by the hypoxia inducible factor alpha (HIF-1α) sharing similar molecular mechanisms. Here, we outline the links between cancer and autoimmunity regarding hypoxia-induced factors, such as HIF-1 and describe the role of hypoxia in the modulation of the autoimmune response.

Keywords: hypoxia, HIF-1α, Helper T cells, Cancer, Autoimmunity

Received: 23 May 2025; Accepted: 13 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Almanzar, Alarcon, Garzon, Navarro, Ondo-Méndez and Prelog. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Giovanni Almanzar, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material