Cancer associated HIF-2a governs trunk neural crest stemness

We report that cancer associated protein HIF-2a is expressed in trunk neural crest neuroblastoma precursor cells in the developing embryo in three different species; human, mouse and avian. Dysregulation of HIF-2a leads to alterations in embryonic development, and neural crest cell migration, proliferation and self-renewal capacity. With RNAsequencing we report that alterations of HIF-2a expression affects the global transcriptome and that gene ontology enrich for the same processes observed in vivo. Overall design: Examination of differences in gene expression in avian trunk neural crest cells with knockdown of HIF-2a vs control.