Renal Cell Carcinoma Programmed Death-ligand 1, a New Direct Target of Hypoxia-inducible Factor-2 Alpha, is Regulated by von Hippel-Lindau Gene Mutation Status.

Background: Clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) frequently display a loss of function of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) gene.

Objective: To elucidate the putative relationship between VHL mutation status and immune checkpoint ligand programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A series of 32 renal tumors composed of 11 VHL tumor-associated and 21 sporadic RCCs were used to evaluate PD-L1 expression levels after sequencing of the three exons and exon-intron junctions of the VHL gene.