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. Examination of differences in gene expression in avian trunk neural crest cells with knockdown of HIF-2a vs control.