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Flux estimation analysis systematically characterizes the metabolic shifts of the central metabolism pathway in human cancer.

Authors :
Yang, Grace
Shaoyang Huang
Hu, Kevin
Lu, Alex
Yang, Jonathan
Meroueh, Noah
Pengtao Dang
Yijie Wang
Haiqi Zhu
Sha Cao
Chi Zhang
Source :
Frontiers in Oncology; 2023, p1-13, 13p
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

Introduction: Glucose and glutamine are major carbon and energy sources that promote the rapid proliferation of cancer cells. Metabolic shifts observed on cell lines or mouse models may not reflect the general metabolic shifts in real human cancer tissue. Method: In this study, we conducted a computational characterization of the flux distributionandvariationsof thecentralenergymetabolismandkeybranches inapancancer analysis, including the glycolytic pathway, production of lactate, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, nucleic acid synthesis, glutaminolysis, glutamate, glutamine, and glutathione metabolism, and amino acid synthesis, in 11 cancer subtypes and nine matched adjacent normal tissue types using TCGA transcriptomics data. Result: Our analysis confirms the increased influx in glucose uptake and glycolysis and decreased upper part of the TCA cycle, i.e., the Warburg effect, in almost all the analyzed cancer. However, increased lactate production and the second half of the TCA cycle were only seen in certain cancer types. More interestingly, we failed to detect significantly altered glutaminolysis in cancer tissuescompared to their adjacent normal tissues. A systemsbiologymodel of metabolic shifts through cancer and tissue types is further developed and analyzed. We observed that (1) normal tissues have distinct metabolic phenotypes; (2) cancer types have drastically different metabolic shifts compared to their adjacent normal controls; and (3) the different shifts in tissuespecific metabolic phenotypes result in a converged metabolic phenotype through cancer types and cancer progression. Discussion: This study strongly suggests the possibility of having a unified framework for studies of cancer-inducing stressors, adaptive metabolic reprogramming, and cancerous behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2234943X
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Frontiers in Oncology
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
164671940
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2023.1117810