We determined that the basal breast cancer cell lines (BT20, MDA-MB231, MDA-MB157) had consistently higher mRNA levels of both HIF1A (HIF-1α) (Figure 7A) and EPAS1 (HIF-2α) (Additional file 4, Figure S16A) when compared to the luminal cell lines (MCF7, BT474, CAMA1). This evidence concerns the gene EPAS1 and breast cancer.