Metabolic shifts induced by human H460 cells in tumor-bearing mice

Design, Synthesis, Antitumor Activity and NMR-Based Metabolomics of Novel Amino Substituted Tetracyclic Imidazo[4,5-b]Pyridine Derivatives

Newly prepared tetracyclic imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine derivatives were synthesized to study their antiproliferative activity against human cancer cells. Additionally, the structure-activity was studied to confirm the impact of the N atom position in pyridine nuclei as well as the chosen amino side chains on antiproliferative activity. Targeted amino substituted regioisomers were prepared by using uncatalyzed amination from corresponding chloro substituted precursors. The most active compounds 6 a, 8 and 10 showed improved activity in comparison to standard drug etoposide with IC50 values in a nanomolar range of concentration (0.2-0.9 μM). NMR-based metabolomics is a powerful instrument to elucidate activity mechanism of new chemotherapeutics. Multivariate and univariate statistical analysis of metabolic profiles of non-small cell lung cancer cells before and after exposure to 6 a revealed significant changes in metabolism of essential amino acids, glycerophospholipids and oxidative defense. Insight into the changes of metabolic pathways that are heavily involved in cell proliferation and survival provide valuable guidelines for more detailed analysis of activity metabolism and possible targets of this class of bioactive compounds.

Fatty acid metabolism is related to the immune microenvironment changes of gastric cancer and RGS2 is a new tumor biomarker

Background

Alterations in lipid metabolism promote tumor progression. However, the role of lipid metabolism in the occurrence and development of gastric cancer have not been fully clarified.

Method

Here, genes that are related to fatty acid metabolism and differentially-expressed between normal and gastric cancer tissues were identified in the TCGA-STAD cohort. The intersection of identified differentially-expressed genes with Geneset was determined to obtain 78 fatty acid metabolism-related genes. The ConsensusClusterPlus R package was used to perform differentially-expressed genes, which yielded divided two gastric cancer subtypes termed cluster 1 and cluster 2.

Results

Patients in cluster 2 was found to display poorer prognosis than patients in cluster 1. Using machine learning method to select 8 differentially expressed genes among subtypes to construct fatty acid prognostic risk score model (FARS), which was found to display good prognostic efficacy. We also identified that certain anticancer drugs, such as bortezomib, elesclomol, GW843682X, and nilotinib, showed significant sensitivity in the high FARS score group. RGS2 was selected as the core gene upon an analysis of the gastric cancer single-cell, and Western blotting and immunofluorescence staining results revealed high level of expression of this gene in gastric cancer cells. The results of immunohistochemical staining showed that a large amount of RGS2 was deposited in the stroma in gastric cancer. A pan-cancer analysis also revealed a significant association of RGS2 with TMB, TIDE, and CD8+ T-cell infiltration in other cancer types as well. RGS2 may thus be studied further as a new target for immunotherapy in future studies on gastric cancer.

Conclusion

In summary, the FARS model developed here enhances our understanding of lipid metabolism in the TME in gastric cancer, and provides a theoretical basis for predicting tumor prognosis and clinical treatment.

Ouabain regulates kidney metabolic profiling in rat offspring of intrauterine growth restriction induced by low-protein diet

AIMS

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) can increase the risk of hypertension and kidney disease at adulthood due to fetal programming. In our previous study, we found that supplementation with low concentration of ouabain during pregnancy could restore glomerulus numbers at birth, rescuing kidney development. However, the metabolic pattern of kidney in IUGR offspring and the effect of ouabain have not been evaluated.

MAIN METHODS

In this study, based on GC-MS and LC-MS platforms, we used the protein restriction rat model to explore the molecular mechanisms of kidney damage induced by IUGR and the protective effect of ouabain.

KEY FINDINGS

The results showed that malnutrition could induce IUGR in rat offspring at the 20th gestational day but ouabain treatment could partially reverse the body and kidney weight loss. Ouabain treatment could upregulate arginine, N-acetylornithine and carbamoyl phosphate as well as adenine nucleotide and guanine nucleotide downregulated by low-protein diet. Moreover, six metabolites were identified to be significantly correlated with fetal kidney weight, with 3 metabolites involved in arginine metabolism (arginine, N-acetylornithine, urea) and UDP-glucuronate correlated positively, while lysine and anthranilate correlated negatively.

SIGNIFICANCE

The results suggested that the underlying mechanism of ouabain against renal maldevelopment involved the metabolic regulation, particularly the arginine metabolism, which played an important role in the development of fetal kidney.

Does the 1H-NMR plasma metabolome reflect the host-tumor interactions in human breast cancer?

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. There is an obvious need for a better understanding of BC biology. Alterations in the serum metabolome of BC patients have been identified but their clinical significance remains elusive. We evaluated by 1H-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy, filtered plasma metabolome of 50 early (EBC) and 15 metastatic BC (MBC) patients. Using Principal Component Analysis, Partial Least-Squares Discriminant Analysis and Hierarchical Clustering we show that plasma levels of glucose, lactate, pyruvate, alanine, leucine, isoleucine, glutamate, glutamine, valine, lysine, glycine, threonine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, acetate, acetoacetate, β-hydroxy-butyrate, urea, creatine and creatinine are modulated across patients clusters. In particular lactate levels are inversely correlated with the tumor size in the EBC cohort (Pearson correlation r = -0.309; p = 0.044). We suggest that, in BC patients, tumor cells could induce modulation of the whole patient's metabolism even at early stages. If confirmed in a lager study these observations could be of clinical importance.