Reduced Warburg Effect in Cancer Cells Undergoing Autophagy: Steady-State H-1-MRS and Real-Time Hyperpolarized C-13-MRS Studies

Gigin Lin, Gabriela Andrejeva, Anne-Christine Wong Te Fong, Deborah K. Hill, Matthew R. Orton, Harry G. Parkes, Dow-Mu Koh, Simon P. Robinson, Martin O. Leach*, Thomas R. Eykyn, Yuen-Li Chung

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Autophagy is a highly regulated, energy dependent cellular process where proteins, organelles and cytoplasm are sequestered in autophagosomes and digested to sustain cellular homeostasis. We hypothesized that during autophagy induced in cancer cells by i) starvation through serum and amino acid deprivation or ii) treatment with PI-103, a class I PI3K/mTOR inhibitor, glycolytic metabolism would be affected, reducing flux to lactate, and that this effect may be reversible. We probed metabolism during autophagy in colorectal HT29 and HCT116 Bax knock-out cells using hyperpolarized 13C-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and steady-state 1H-MRS. 24 hr PI103-treatment or starvation caused significant reduction in the apparent forward rate constant (kPL) for pyruvate to lactate exchange compared with controls in HT29 (100 μM PI-103: 82%, p = 0.05) and HCT116 Bax-ko cells (10 μM PI-103: 53%, p = 0.05; 20 μM PI-103: 42%, p<0.0001; starvation: 52%, p<0.001), associated with reduced lactate excretion and intracellular lactate in all cases, and unchanged lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity and increased NAD+/NADH ratio following PI103 treatment or decreased LDH activity and unchanged NAD+/NADH ratio following starvation. After 48 hr recovery from PI103 treatment, kPL remained below control levels in HT29 cells (74%, p = 0.02), and increased above treated values, but remained below 24 hr vehicle-treated control levels in HCT116 Bax-ko cells (65%, p = 0.004) both were accompanied by sustained reduction in lactate excretion, recovery of NAD+/NADH ratio and intracellular lactate. Following recovery from starvation, kPLwas significantly higher than 24 hr vehicle-treated controls (140%, p = 0.05), associated with increased LDH activity and total cellular NAD(H). Changes in kPL and cellular and excreted lactate provided measureable indicators of the major metabolic processes accompanying starvation- and drug-induced autophagy. The changes are reversible, returning towards and exceeding control values on cellular recovery, which potentially identifies resistance. kPL(hyperpolarized 13C-MRS) and lactate (1H-MRS) provide useful biomarkers for the autophagic process, enabling non-invasive monitoring of the Warburg effect.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere92645
Number of pages12
JournalPL o S One
Volume9
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Mar 2014

Keywords

  • MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-SPECTROSCOPY
  • TUMOR RESPONSE
  • BREAST
  • PYRUVATE
  • LACTATE
  • METABOLISM
  • INHIBITOR
  • INDUCTION
  • APOPTOSIS
  • PROSTATE

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