Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0345904 (liver cancer)
 15,188 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Reprogrammed metabolism and redox homeostasis are potential targets of cancer therapy. Our previous study demonstrated that the kidney form of glutaminase (GLS1) is highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells and can be used as a target for effective anticancer therapy. Dihydroartemisinin (DHA) increases intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels leading to cytotoxicity in cancer cells. However, the heterogeneity of cancer cells often leads to differing responses to oxidative lesions. For instance, cancer cells with high ratio of GSH/GSSG, a critical ROS scavenger, are resistant to ROS-induced cytotoxicity. We postulate that a combinatorial strategy firstly disrupting redox homeostasis followed by DHA might yield a profound antitumor efficacy. In this study, when HCC cells were treated with a GLS1 inhibitor 968, the ROS elimination capacity was significantly reduced in HCC cells, which rendered HCC cells but not normal endothelial cells more sensitive to DHA-mediated cytotoxicity. We further confirmed that this synergistic antitumor efficacy was mediated by excessive ROS generation in HCC cells. NAC, a ROS inhibitor, partly rescued the combinatorial cytotoxic effect of 968 and DHA. Given that GLS1 is a potential antitumor target and DHA has been safely used in clinic, our findings provide new insight into liver cancer therapy targeting glutamine metabolism combined with the ROS generator DHA, which can be readily translated into cancer clinical trials.
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PMID:The Glutaminase-1 Inhibitor 968 Enhances Dihydroartemisinin-Mediated Antitumor Efficacy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells. 2783 69

Notwithstanding the numerous drugs available for liver cancer, emerging evidence suggests that chemotherapeutic resistance is a significant issue. HGF and its receptor MET play critical roles in liver carcinogenesis and metastasis, mainly dependent on the activity of receptor tyrosine kinase. However, for unknown reasons, all HGF-MET kinase activity-targeted drugs have failed or have been suspended in clinical trials thus far. Macroautophagy/autophagy is a protective 'self-eating' process for resisting metabolic stress by recycling obsolete components, whereas the impact of autophagy-mediated reprogrammed metabolism on therapeutic resistance is largely unclear, especially in liver cancer. In the present study, we first observed that HGF stimulus facilitated the Warburg effect and glutaminolysis to promote biogenesis in multiple liver cancer cells. We then identified the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHC) and GLS/GLS1 as crucial substrates of HGF-activated MET kinase; MET-mediated phosphorylation inhibits PDHC activity but activates GLS to promote cancer cell metabolism and biogenesis. We further found that the key residues of kinase activity in MET (Y1234/1235) also constitute a conserved LC3-interacting region motif (Y1234-Y1235-x-V1237). Therefore, on inhibiting HGF-mediated MET kinase activation, Y1234/1235-dephosphorylated MET induced autophagy to maintain biogenesis for cancer cell survival. Moreover, we verified that Y1234/1235-dephosphorylated MET correlated with autophagy in clinical liver cancer. Finally, a combination of MET inhibitor and autophagy suppressor significantly improved the therapeutic efficiency of liver cancer in vitro and in mice. Together, our findings reveal an HGF-MET axis-coordinated functional interaction between tyrosine kinase signaling and autophagy, and establish a MET-autophagy double-targeted strategy to overcome chemotherapeutic resistance in liver cancer. Abbreviations: ALDO: aldolase, fructose-bisphosphate; CQ: chloroquine; DLAT/PDCE2: dihydrolipoamide S-acetyltransferase; EMT: epithelial-mesenchymal transition; ENO: enolase; GAPDH: glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase; GLS/GLS1: glutaminase; GLUL/GS: glutamine-ammonia ligase; GPI/PGI: glucose-6-phosphate isomerase; HCC: hepatocellular carcinoma; HGF: hepatocyte growth factor; HK: hexokinase; LDH: lactate dehydrogenase; LIHC: liver hepatocellular carcinoma; LIR: LC3-interacting region; PDH: pyruvate dehydrogenase; PDHA1: pyruvate dehydrogenase E1 alpha 1 subunit; PDHX: pyruvate dehydrogenase complex component X; PFK: phosphofructokinase; PK: pyruvate kinase; RTK: receptor tyrosine kinase; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas.
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PMID:The HGF-MET axis coordinates liver cancer metabolism and autophagy for chemotherapeutic resistance. 3078 11