Hypoxia and Molecular Cardiovascular Medicine

Hypoxia induces a cascade of physiologic responses that include glycolysis, erythropoiesis, angiogenesis, changes in adrenergic signal transduction and vascular tone, modulation of vascular cellular proliferation, and inflammation. This review addresses the recent and explosive growth in our knowledge of how vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells actively respond to hypoxic stress, with additional focus on the roles of the NF-κB family of transactivation proteins in these responses.