Abstract
Purpose: We recently demonstrated that histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors can "reprogram" differentiated triple-negative breast cancer cells to become quiescent stem-like cancer cells. We hypothesized that the metabolic state of such cells differs from that of their differentiated progeny. Results: In untreated cells, glucose uptake was higher in ALDH+ cells than in ALDH- cells (p = 0.01) but lactate production was not different; treating ALDH- or ALDH+ cells with VA or SAHA similarly increased glucose uptake without changing lactate production but upregulated G6PD, a rate-limiting enzyme in pentose phosphate pathway metabolism. NADPH production was higher in HDAC inhibitor-treated stem-like cells than in vehicle-treated cells (p < 0.05). Two G6PD inhibitors, 6-aminonicotinamide and dehydroepiandrosterone, decreased mammosphere formation efficiency and ALDH activity and 6-aminonicotinamide reduced the VAinduced increase in ALDH+ cells. Finally, patients expressing high G6PD mRNA had significantly worse overall survival (p < 0.001), and patients with high G6PD protein showed a similar trend towards worse disease-specific survival (p = 0.06). Methods: Glucose consumption, lactate and NADPH production, and reactive oxygen species generation were compared in aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH)-positive and -negative cells in the presence or absence of the HDAC inhibitors valproic acid (VA) or suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA). Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) expression was evaluated in a tissue microarray from 94 patients with nodepositive invasive breast carcinoma and in two publically available databases and correlated with overall survival. Conclusions: Energy metabolism in HDAC inhibitor-induced stem-like cancer cells differed sharply from that of differentiated cell types. HDAC inhibitor-induced dedifferentiation promoted metabolic reprogramming into the pentose phosphate pathway, which is targeted effectively by G6PD inhibition. These findings highlight a potential dual-therapy approach to targeting bulk differentiated cells with HDAC inhibitors and CSCs with G6PD inhibitors.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 28329-28339 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Oncotarget |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 19 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 10 2016 |
Keywords
- Cancer stem cells
- G6PD
- HDAC inhibitors
- Pentose phosphate pathway
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology