Indeed, in breast cancer HIF-1α and HIF-2α were shown to promote stemness by promoting expression of AlkB homolog 5 (ALKBH5), which promotes m6A demethylation of a cancer stemness promoter, the NANOG mRNA; this enhances NANOG expression and subsequently increases the breast cancer stem cell phenotype in TNBC cell lines (Zhang et al., 2016). This evidence concerns the gene EPAS1 and breast cancer.