Renal or kidney cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancer cases reported each year in the US. Molecular signatures that define the cancer, such as the loss of functional VHL, are found in both sporadic and familial cases of cancer. In clear cell renal cancer, the transcription factor HIF-2α has been shown to have a distinct role in tumorigenesis. Our laboratories developed a cell-based screen to identify modulators of HIF-2α. Screening of the NCI's Natural Product Extract Repository resulted in the identification of 10 sponge extracts from which 12 compounds were isolated. The biological evaluation of these compounds will be discussed including evaluation of HIF-1α vs. HIF-2αselectively and the isolated compounds' effects on mRNA from several pathways regulated by HIF.Approximately 58,000 individuals were diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma (RCC, kidney cancer) in 2011, 1 accounting for 3% of the cancers in the USA. 2 RCC is not a single disease, but can be separated into several distinct diseases based on clinical, morphological and molecular features. Many of these molecular features have been identified based on the study of families that are affected by inherited renal cancer syndromes. 2 Certain molecular features of patients with Von Hippel Lindau (VHL) disease are also present in individuals who develop sporadic clear cell RCC, the most prevalent RCC subtype. 3 Specifically, loss of VHL gene function as occurs in Von Hippel Lindau patients is seen in > 90% of sporadic RCC tumors. VHL protein (pVHL) is part of an E3 ubiquitin ligase system that recognizes and marks substrates for degradation. 4 The primary substrate of the pVHL complex is hypoxia inducible factor-alpha subunit (HIF-α). There are three known isoforms of HIF-α: * Corresponding Author: Tel: (301) 846-1943. Fax: (301) Under normal levels of oxygen, specific proline residues in HIF-1α and HIF-2α are hydroxylated. This reaction allows VHL to bind and ubiquitylate the α-subunit leading to its degradation. Under hypoxic conditions, this hydroxylation does not take place, HIF-α subunits accumulate within the cell, dimerize with ARNT, and translocate to the nucleus where they bind to hypoxia response elements (HREs), turning on transcription of a large number of genes. HIF regulated genes function in a variety of pathways including angiogenesis (e.g., vascular endothelial growth factor, VEGF), cell survival (e.g., erythropoietin, EPO) and glucose metabolism (e.g., glucose transporter-1, GLUT1) that together allow the cell to cope with and survive under the hypoxic conditions. 5 It is therefore not surprising that HIF has been shown to be upregulated in many tumors due to intratumoral hypoxia or by genetic mutation. Indeed upregulation of HIF is often associated with aggressive growth, treatment resistance, metastasis, and poor prognosis. 6 In renal cancer, HIF-2α plays a primary role in tumorigenesis. [7][8][9] To better understand the importance of HIF-2α to RCC, our laboratories generated a cellbased screen to identify inhibitors of HIF...