Development of holistic cancer treatment centering cancer patients-from the standpoint of hypoxia and hedgehog signaling

Recently, hypoxia that is one of cancer microenvironments, takes much attention. Because circumstance that we usually perform experiment is 20% 02 condition, it is likely that different signaling pathways may be activated in vivo cancer. We focused Hedgehog (Hh) signaling as one of activated pathways under hypoxia. It has been shown that Hh signaling is activated under hypoxia, followed by inducing malignant phenotypes in pancreatic cancer. Therefore, Hh signaling inhibitor should elicit anti-tumor effect. However, if we consider "whole-person therapy" we should confirm how Hh signaling affects the function of immune cells. In the present study, we describe hypoxia/Hh signaling/functions of cancer cells and immune cells focusing our previous results.