Altered metabolism in cancer cells is pivotal for tumor growth, most notably by providing energy, reducing equivalents and building blocks while several metabolites exert a signaling function ...promoting tumor growth and progression. A cancer tissue cannot be simply reduced to a bulk of proliferating cells. Tumors are indeed complex and dynamic structures where single cells can heterogeneously perform various biological activities with different metabolic requirements. Because tumors are composed of different types of cells with metabolic activities affected by different spatial and temporal contexts, it is important to address metabolism taking into account cellular and biological heterogeneity. In this review, we describe this heterogeneity also in metabolic fluxes, thus showing the relative contribution of different metabolic activities to tumor progression according to the cellular context. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Mitochondria in Cancer, edited by Giuseppe Gasparre, Rodrigue Rossignol and Pierre Sonveaux.
•Different biological activities might require different metabolic adaptations.•Metabolic alterations support tumor growth, survival, and progression.•Metabolism is not homogenous in cancer, reflecting the heterogeneity of tumor tissue.•Metabolic alterations are tissue dependent and differ from the ones in 2D-culture.
Mitochondria in cancer Grasso, Debora; Zampieri, Luca X.; Capelôa, Tânia ...
Cell Stress,
06/2020, Letnik:
4, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The rediscovery and reinterpretation of the Warburg effect in the year 2000 occulted for almost a decade the key functions exerted by mitochondria in cancer cells. Until recent times, the scientific ...community indeed focused on constitutive glycolysis as a hallmark of cancer cells, which it is not, largely ignoring the contribution of mitochondria to the malignancy of oxidative and glycolytic cancer cells, being Warburgian or merely adapted to hypoxia. In this review, we highlight that mitochondria are not only powerhouses in some cancer cells, but also dynamic regulators of life, death, proliferation, motion and stemness in other types of cancer cells. Similar to the cells that host them, mitochondria are capable to adapt to tumoral conditions, and probably to evolve to ‘oncogenic mitochondria' capable of transferring malignant capacities to recipient cells. In the wider quest of metabolic modulators of cancer, treatments have already been identified targeting mitochondria in cancer cells, but the field is still in infancy.
Glioblastoma represents the highest grade of brain tumors. Despite maximal resection surgery associated with radiotherapy and concomitant followed by adjuvant chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ), ...patients have a very poor prognosis due to the rapid recurrence and the acquisition of resistance to TMZ. Here, initially considering that TMZ is a prodrug whose activation is pH-dependent, we explored the contribution of glioblastoma cell metabolism to TMZ resistance. Using isogenic TMZ-sensitive and TMZ-resistant human glioblastoma cells, we report that the expression of O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), which is known to repair TMZ-induced DNA methylation, does not primarily account for TMZ resistance. Rather, fitter mitochondria in TMZ-resistant glioblastoma cells are a direct cause of chemoresistance that can be targeted by inhibiting oxidative phosphorylation and/or autophagy/mitophagy. Unexpectedly, we found that PARP inhibitor olaparib, but not talazoparib, is also a mitochondrial Complex I inhibitor. Hence, we propose that the anticancer activities of olaparib in glioblastoma and other cancer types combine DNA repair inhibition and impairment of cancer cell respiration.
The clinical management of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) commonly involves chemoradiotherapy, but recurrences often occur that are associated with radioresistance. Using human SQD9 ...laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma cancer cells as a model, we aimed to identify metabolic changes associated with acquired radioresistance. In a top-down approach, matched radiosensitive and radioresistant SQD9 cells were generated and metabolically compared, focusing on glycolysis, oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and ROS production. The cell cycle, clonogenicity, tumor growth in mice and DNA damage-repair were assessed. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was sequenced. In a bottom-up approach, matched glycolytic and oxidative SQD9 cells were generated using FACS-sorting, and tested for their radiosensitivity/radioresistance. We found that acquired radioresistance is associated with a shift from a glycolytic to a more oxidative metabolism in SQD9 cells. The opposite was also true, as the most oxidative fraction isolated from SQD9 wild-type cells was also more radioresistant than the most glycolytic fraction. However, neither reduced hexokinase expression nor OXPHOS were directly responsible for the radioresistant phenotype. Radiosensitive and radioresistant cells had similar proliferation rates and were equally efficient for ATP production. They were equally sensitive to redox stress and had similar DNA damage repair, but radioresistant cells had an increased number of mitochondria and a higher mtDNA content. Thus, an oxidative switch is associated with but is not responsible for acquired radioresistance in human SQD9 cells. In radioresistant cells, more abundant and fitter mitochondria could help to preserve mitochondrial functions upon irradiation.
Cancers develop metabolic strategies to cope with their microenvironment often characterized by hypoxia, limited nutrient bioavailability and exposure to anticancer treatments. Among these ...strategies, the metabolic symbiosis based on the exchange of lactate between hypoxic/glycolytic cancer cells that convert glucose to lactate and oxidative cancer cells that preferentially use lactate as an oxidative fuel optimizes the bioavailability of glucose to hypoxic cancer cells. This metabolic cooperation has been described in various human cancers and can provide resistance to anti-angiogenic therapies. It depends on the expression and activity of monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs) at the cell membrane. MCT4 is the main facilitator of lactate export by glycolytic cancer cells, and MCT1 is adapted for lactate uptake by oxidative cancer cells. While MCT1 inhibitor AZD3965 is currently tested in phase I clinical trials and other inhibitors of lactate metabolism have been developed for anticancer therapy, predicting and monitoring a response to the inhibition of lactate uptake is still an unmet clinical need. Here, we report the synthesis, evaluation and in vivo validation of (±)-18F-3-fluoro-2-hydroxypropionate (18F-FLac) as a tracer of lactate for positron emission tomography. 18F-FLac offers the possibility to monitor MCT1-dependent lactate uptake and inhibition in tumors in vivo.
Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most aggressive cancers, characterized by a decrease in antioxidant levels. Evidence has demonstrated that ferulic acid (FA), a natural antioxidant particularly ...abundant in vegetables and fruits, could be a promising candidate for GBM treatment. Since FA shows a high instability that compromises its therapeutic application, it has been encapsulated into Nanostructured Lipid Carriers (NLCs) to improve its bioavailability in the brain. It has been demonstrated that tissue transglutaminase (TG2) is a multi-functional protein implicated in many physiological and pathological processes, including cancer. TG2 is also involved in GBM correlated with metastasis formation and drug resistance. Therefore, the evaluation of TG2 expression levels and its cellular localization are important to assess the anti-cancer effect of FA against GBM cancer. Our results have demonstrated that treatment with free FA and FA-NLCs in the U87-MG cancer cell line differently modified TG2 localization and expression levels. In the cells treated with free FA, TG2 appeared expressed both in the cytosol and in the nucleus, while the treatment with FA-NLCs showed that the protein is exclusively localized in the cytosol, exerting its pro-apoptotic effect. Therefore, our data suggest that FA loaded in NLCs could represent a promising natural agent for supplementing the current anti-cancer drugs used for the treatment of GBM.
Mowat-Wilson syndrome (MWS) is a genetic disease characterized by distinctive facial features, moderate to severe intellectual disability, and congenital malformations, including Hirschsprung ...disease, genital and eye anomalies, and congenital heart defects, caused by haploinsufficiency of the ZEB2 gene. To date, no characteristic pattern of brain dysmorphology in MWS has been defined.
Through brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis, we delineated a neuroimaging phenotype in 54 MWS patients with a proven ZEB2 defect, compared it with the features identified in a thorough review of published cases, and evaluated genotype-phenotype correlations.
Ninety-six percent of patients had abnormal MRI results. The most common features were anomalies of corpus callosum (79.6% of cases), hippocampal abnormalities (77.8%), enlargement of cerebral ventricles (68.5%), and white matter abnormalities (reduction of thickness 40.7%, localized signal alterations 22.2%). Other consistent findings were large basal ganglia, cortical, and cerebellar malformations. Most features were underrepresented in the literature. We also found ZEB2 variations leading to synthesis of a defective protein to be favorable for psychomotor development and some epilepsy features but also associated with corpus callosum agenesis.
This study delineated the spectrum of brain anomalies in MWS and provided new insights into the role of ZEB2 in neurodevelopment.Genet Med advance online publication 10 November 2016.
Glycopyrrolate is a competitive muscarinic receptor antagonist used in the treatment of sialorrhea, especially in pediatrics. Degradation research was conducted to better understand the stability of ...the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). Using an HPLC-UV method, we evaluated the chemical stability of the oral solution of the galenic compound glycopyrrolate 0.5 mg/mL under different storage conditions. Method validation was performed according to the International Council for Harmonization (ICH) Q2(R2) guidelines. The results of the stability study of the galenic compound in different storage conditions, with the exception of those stored in glass containers at 45 °C for more than 3 months, were stable (100 ± 10% of the nominal concentration). The aim of this work was to study the stability of the galenic compound glycopyrrolate in two different types of containers and at three different storage temperatures. Glycopyrrolate showed degradation beyond the limits only in glass at 45 °C and after 2 months of storage. The results indicate that oral liquid dosage forms of glycopyrrolate are stable for at least 210 days when stored at room temperature or at 4 °C, in glass or PET, for at least 7 months, maintaining product quality according to the standards established by the European Pharmacopoeia, ensuring long-term coverage for pediatric patient therapies.
Background
Cognitive impairment is a frequent disabling feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Orthostatic hypotension (OH) is treatable and may be a risk factor for cognitive impairment.
Objective
We ...conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the relationship between OH with PD-associated minimal cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) and dementia (PDD) and assess the mitigating effects of potential confounding factors.
Methods
Observational studies published in English, Spanish, French, or Portuguese up to January 2022 were searched for in PubMed, EBSCO, and SciELO databases. The primary aim of this study was to revise the association between OH with PD-MCI and PDD. Alongside, we assessed OH as related to cognitive rating scales. Fixed and random models were fitted. Meta-regression was used to assess the mitigating effects of confounding variables.
Results
We identified 18 studies that reported OH association with PDD or PD-MCI, 15 of them reporting OH association with cognitive rating scales. OH was significantly associated with PDD/PD-MCI (OR, 95% CI: 3.31, 2.16–5.08;
k
= 18,
n
= 2251;
p
< 0.01). OH association with PDD (4.64, 2.68–8.02;
k
= 13,
n
= 1194;
p
< 0.01) was stronger than with PD-MCI (1.82, 0.92–3.58;
k
= 5,
n
= 1056;
p
= NS). The association between OH and PD-MCI/PDD was stronger in studies with a higher proportion of women and in those with a lower frequency of supine hypertension. Global cognition rating scale scores were lower in patients with OH (SMD, 95% CI: − 0.55, − 0.83/ − 0.26;
k
= 12,
n
= 1427;
p
< 0.01).
Conclusions
Orthostatic hypotension shows as a significant risk factor for cognitive impairment in PD, especially in women and patients not suffering from hypertension
.