ABSTRACT
Tissue ischemia can result in the establishment of hypoxic microenvironments wherein cells may demonstrate varying degrees of stress response and other forms of pathophysiology. An emerging theme in cell cycle control is that the synthesis and turnover of key regulatory factors must be precisely controlled for ordered progression through the cell cycle. Acquisition of proliferation-specific proteins and serum-responsive proliferation of myocytes suggests that cell cycle regulatory factors may be intracellular targets of ischemic stress in all cell types. The cell cycle control of kinases and phosphatases, and the factors that activate them, are of major importance to our understanding of cell proliferation and differentiation. The chapter examines the effect of hypoxia on regulatory proteins involved in gating cell cycle progression. The development of molecular and immunological tools that may be used to approach these possibilities should be an important goal for future research.
