Abstract
Oxygen is, first of all, the combustive agent required for life and the provider of energy required by all heterotrophic organisms, those which cannot directly use solar energy as chlorophyllous plants do. Oxygen supply must be finely tuned, because insufficiency is as damaging as excess: hypoxia endangers cellular life through lack of energy supply, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) also endangers life because of their toxicity. In order to inform the organism of hypoxia or oxidative stress, signalling pathways are implemented and are studied in this chapter. In relation to oxidative stress, a special oxidised form of nitrogen, nitric oxide, is also a true intracellular messenger with multiple effects and will also be studied here.
The tumour cell is exquisitely sensitive to the effects of hypoxia and oxidative stress; it reacts to hypoxia by stimulating tumour vascularisation (angiogenesis), oxygen-independent energy supply and protein synthesis downregulation; it reacts to oxidative stress by activating signalling pathways still not completely deciphered. Reactive oxygen species appear as a double-edged sword, involved in carcinogenesis but perhaps useful to combat cancers.
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Robert, J. (2015). Signalling by Oxygen and Nitric Oxide. In: Textbook of Cell Signalling in Cancer. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14340-8_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14340-8_16
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