Revista de medicina y terapéutica molecular

Prolyl Hydroxylases in fight or flight

Anne-Theres Henze, Rodrigo Leite de Oliveira and Massimiliano Mazzone

Prolyl Hydroxylases in fight or flight

The fight or flight response was introduced by the American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon at the beginning of the 20th century as a primary instinctive reaction of animals to a situation of danger. Applying this simplified point of view from behavioral research to studies of the cellular response to stress signals we are able to narrow down the complexity of the cellular system to either evading (“fleeing”) or resisting (“fighting”) growth-restricting conditions. We believe that the prolyl hydroxylase domain (PHDs) proteins function at important crossroads between these two extremes.