Kitajima Y et al. - These experiments demonstrated for the first time that HGFA is a novel HIF-1 target gene. Under hypoxia, HGFA might be overexpressed and secreted from pancreatic cancer cells, which contributes to accelerate processing of HGF from fibroblast, resulting in the activation of the c-Met pathway. HGF/HGFA/c-Met recruited between cancer-stromal fibroblasts is activated under hypoxic conditions and therefore might play a central role in the aggressive invasion of pancreatic cancer.