The 94th Annual Meeting of Japanese Society for Bacteriology

Presentation information

Workshop

[WS8] Molecular basis of hypoxic environment and associated diseases (cancer, infectious diseases)

Thu. Mar 25, 2021 12:45 PM - 2:45 PM Channel 2

Convener: Toshihiko Suzuki (Tokyo Medical and Dental University)

[WS8-1] Formation of aberrant tumor metabolism under hypoxic condition

○Koh Nakayama (Dept. Pharmacol., Sch. Med., Asahikawa Med. Univ.)

When our body is exposed to hypoxic condition, we regulate metabolism, respiration, and erythropoiesis to adapt to the condition. Hypoxia-Inducible Factor (HIF) plays a central role in this process. Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is an enzyme which catalyzes the production of acetyl CoA from pyruvate. PDH consists of five subunits; E1α, E1β, E2, E3 and E3BP. Under hypoxic condition, HIF induces PDH kinase and promotes the phosphorylation of PDH-E1α to inhibit its activity. This pathway leads to the energetic conversion in hypoxia: from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis. In addition, we identified a new machinery to switch the metabolic status under prolonged hypoxic condition.
When breast cancer cell line was cultured in prolonged hypoxia, PDH-E1β is downregulated and the PDH activity is repressed. Further, downregulation of PDH-E1β was sustained after reoxygenation, which contributed to the aerobic glycolysis in cancer cells. Furthermore, knockdown (KD) of PDH-E1β created the aerobic glycolysis status, indicating that reduction of PDH activity plays a critical role on metabolic switching. Importantly, KD of PDH in cancer cells inhibited its growth even though they exhibit typical cancer metabolism. I would like to discuss a possible connection between the tumor metabolism and malignant phenotype of cancer cells, hoping to extend this notion to the study of microbiology.