HIF1A and systemic sclerosis: HIF-1α expression is elevated in a number of fibrotic diseases (Fine et al., 1998; Baan et al., 2003; Zhang et al., 2003, 2004) and overt up-regulation of HIF-1α in the skin of naïve SSc patients was observed compared with normal skin (Ioannou et al., 2013) further suggesting that HIF1α is involved in the pathogenesis of fibrotic disease, particularly in SSc (Wipff et al., 2009).