Fig. 2
From: Hypoxia and hypoxia-inducible factors in chronic kidney disease
Maladaptation to hypoxia during CKD progression. HIF accumulation occurring at certain stages during CKD is expected to protect the kidney against hypoxia (blue squares on the left). Nevertheless, in many CKD patients, kidney hypoxia does not improve, resulting in ESKD via several mechanisms (red squares on the right). Further details are explained in the text. HIF hypoxia-inducible factor, DM diabetes mellitus, VEGF vascular endothelial growth factor, EPC endothelial progenitor cell, UCP2 uncoupling protein 2