Abstract
The lactate dehydrogenase A (LDH-A) gene, whose product participates in normal anaerobic glycolysis and is frequently increased in human cancers, has been identified as a c-Myc-responsive gene. It was of interest, therefore, to compare the effect of glucose deprivation in c-Myc-transformed and nontransformed cells. We observed that glucose deprivation or treatment with the glucose anti-metabolite 2-deoxyglucose caused nontransformed cells to arrest in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle. In contrast, c-Myc-transformed fibroblasts, lymphoblastoid, or lung carcinoma cells underwent extensive apoptosis. Ectopic expression of LDH-A alone in Rat1a fibroblasts was sufficient to induce apoptosis with glucose deprivation but not with serum withdrawal, suggesting that LDH-A mediates the unique apoptotic effect of c- Myc when glycolysis is blocked. The apoptosis caused by glucose deprivation was blocked by Bcl-2 expression but appeared to be independent of wild-type p53 activity. These studies provide insights on the coupling of glucose metabolism and the cell cycle in c-Myc-transformed cells and may in the future be exploited for cancer therapeutics.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1511-1516 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 95 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 17 1998 |
Keywords
- Apoptosis
- Glucose deprivation
- Lactate dehydrogenase
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General