Pyruvate carboxylase is critical for non–small-cell lung cancer proliferation
Katherine Sellers, … , Andrew N. Lane, Teresa W.-M. Fan
Katherine Sellers, … , Andrew N. Lane, Teresa W.-M. Fan
Published January 20, 2015
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2015;125(2):687-698. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI72873.
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Pyruvate carboxylase is critical for non–small-cell lung cancer proliferation

Abstract

Anabolic biosynthesis requires precursors supplied by the Krebs cycle, which in turn requires anaplerosis to replenish precursor intermediates. The major anaplerotic sources are pyruvate and glutamine, which require the activity of pyruvate carboxylase (PC) and glutaminase 1 (GLS1), respectively. Due to their rapid proliferation, cancer cells have increased anabolic and energy demands; however, different cancer cell types exhibit differential requirements for PC- and GLS-mediated pathways for anaplerosis and cell proliferation. Here, we infused patients with early-stage non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with uniformly 13C-labeled glucose before tissue resection and determined that the cancerous tissues in these patients had enhanced PC activity. Freshly resected paired lung tissue slices cultured in 13C6-glucose or 13C5,15N2-glutamine tracers confirmed selective activation of PC over GLS in NSCLC. Compared with noncancerous tissues, PC expression was greatly enhanced in cancerous tissues, whereas GLS1 expression showed no trend. Moreover, immunohistochemical analysis of paired lung tissues showed PC overexpression in cancer cells rather than in stromal cells of tumor tissues. PC knockdown induced multinucleation, decreased cell proliferation and colony formation in human NSCLC cells, and reduced tumor growth in a mouse xenograft model. Growth inhibition was accompanied by perturbed Krebs cycle activity, inhibition of lipid and nucleotide biosynthesis, and altered glutathione homeostasis. These findings indicate that PC-mediated anaplerosis in early-stage NSCLC is required for tumor survival and proliferation.

Authors

Katherine Sellers, Matthew P. Fox, Michael Bousamra II, Stephen P. Slone, Richard M. Higashi, Donald M. Miller, Yali Wang, Jun Yan, Mariia O. Yuneva, Rahul Deshpande, Andrew N. Lane, Teresa W.-M. Fan

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Figure 1

PC is activated in human NSCLC tumors.

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PC is activated in human NSCLC tumors. (A) PC and GLS1 catalyze the majo...
(A) PC and GLS1 catalyze the major anaplerotic inputs (blue) into the Krebs cycle to support the anabolic demand for biosynthesis (green). Also shown is the fate of 13C from 13C6-glucose through glycolysis and into the Krebs cycle via PC (red). (B) Representative Western blots of PC and GLS1 protein expression levels in human NC lung (N) and NSCLC (C) tissues. (C) Pairwise PC and GLS1 expression (n = 86) was normalized to α-tubulin and plotted as the log10 ratio of CA/NC tissues. For PC, nearly all log ratios were positive (82 of 86), with a clustering in the 0.5–1 range (i.e., typically 3- to 10-fold higher expression in the tumor tissue; Wilcoxon test, P < 0.0001). In contrast, GLS1 expression was nearly evenly distributed between positive and negative log10 ratios and showed no statistically significant difference between the CA and NC tissues (Wilcoxon test, P = 0.213). Horizontal bar represents the median. (D) In vivo PC activity was enhanced in CA tissue compared with that in paired NC lung tissues (n = 34) resected from the same human patients given 13C6-glucose 2.5–3 hours before tumor resection. PC activity was inferred from the enrichment of 13C3-citrate (Cit+3), 13C5-Cit (Cit+5), 13C3-malate (Mal+3), and 13C3-aspartate (Asp+3) as determined by GC-MS. *P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01 by paired Student t test. Error bars represent the SEM.