PHCbi-Panasonic eBook - 12

Cell Therapy Today * New Developments in Immunotherapy * Benefits of Oxygen Control in the Cell Culture Incubator

development was altered in HIF-deficiency
in mice.20
The lack of HIF, which represents a phenotype
similar to atmospheric oxygen, resulted in stem
cells differentiating into another type of cell, e.g.
trophoblast giant cells instead of spongiotrophoblasts. This study suggested that physiological
oxygen levels (3% in this tissue) activated HIF,
which in turn pushed placental cells to differentiate into a specific fate.

Cancer and Physiological Oxygen
Oxygen levels play a key role in
pathophysiological studies. Viruses, cancer,
and other disease states often create hypoxic
microenvironments in tissues where HIF initiates
complex interactions.
In a study seeking to understand the mechanism
of neurotoxicity during HIV infection, cells cultured
at physiological oxygen experienced cell death
from HIV's neurotoxins, while those cultured at
12

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atmospheric oxygen did not.21 This implies that
the mechanism through which HIV killed cells
relied heavily on the appropriate levels of oxygen.
In another study, HIF via hypoxia activation was
found to downregulate ß-catenin in the Wnt
signaling pathway by competitively binding to
ß-catenin resulting in cell-cycle arrest and inhibition of transcriptional activity.22
ß-catenin and Wnt signaling have critical roles in
embryogenesis, but have also been implicated
in cancer development and progression when
improperly regulated. These studies suggest that
oxygen and HIF levels have a role in many pathophysiological processes.
As more research is conducted to understand the
mechanisms of cancer and other diseases, it is
critical to examine how these cells are affected by
oxygen concentrations.
To achieve the most relevant results, lessons
learned from IVF can be applied to other areas,
such as toxicology and cancer biology. Better

understanding how oxygen factors into any
biological mechanism is of supreme importance
for further research development.

Conclusion
With current trends moving towards incorporating oxygen into investigations, particularly
in applications such as IVF, stem cell and cancer
biology, more investigators are examining
options associated with conventional CO2
incubators that extend to O2 control as well.
Due to budget restrictions, the need for a cell
culture incubator with convertible performance,
from conventional CO2 control to CO2 and O2
control is critical.
Advances in incubator design now include the
addition of multiple gas control systems based
on a new generation of dual-infrared CO2 sensors,
zirconia O2 sensors and algorithms configured
to assure quick recovery of desired atmosphere
levels following door openings.23
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