7< 0.01. To further assess the dependence of A549 cells on HIF-1 for cell growth, we measured the proliferation of A549/Vec or A549/shHIF-1 cells under low-glucose conditions along with serum starvation and/or hypoxia (1% O2). human cancer. mutations are associated with a number of human cancers including lung, breast, and cervical cancer (12C15), and genetic ablation of LKB1 in mice promotes tumorigenesis in a variety of tissues (16). LKB1 is involved in a diverse array of cellular processes, including cell polarity, apoptosis, and cell growth (17, 18). All these processes play a role in cancer initiation and progression, and as such their relative contribution to LKB1-mediated tumor suppression remains unclear. Although LKB1 is widely accepted as a regulator of cell growth control, the impact of LKB1 on tumor metabolism has remained unclear. Benign tumors haploinsufficient for LKB1 can be visualized using 18F-deoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging (19), suggesting that loss of LKB1 can promote increased glucose uptake by tumor cells. LKB1 may also influence ATP consumption by limiting mTORC1-dependent mRNA translation (20, 21). In this study, we have characterized the impact of LKB1 loss on cellular metabolism in both transformed and nontransformed cells. We find that silencing LKB1 in tumor cells increases glucose and glutamine consumption and promotes a metabolic switch to aerobic glycolysis. We demonstrate that HIF-1 drives the metabolic shift induced by LKB1 loss and that ablation of HIF-1 reverses the metabolic advantage of LKB1-deficient cells. Together, our data implicate LKB1 loss as a key regulator of tumor-cell metabolism and growth through regulation of HIF-1Cdependent metabolic reprogramming. Results Loss of LKB1 Promotes Enhanced CEP dipeptide 1 Glucose and Glutamine Metabolism. To examine the metabolic consequences of LKB1 loss, we manipulated LKB1 expression in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) harboring a conditional mutation in the gene (LKB1MEFs transduced with control retrovirus (Cre?) or a retrovirus expressing Cre recombinase (Cre+). (and MEFs expressing bare vector (open pub) or Cre recombinase (packed bar) were cultivated for 72 h, and glucose usage (and MEFs with (+) or without (?) Cre manifestation. (< 0.05; **< 0.01. We next cultured control or LKB1-null MEFs with uniformly labeled (U-13C) glucose or glutamine, and examined the total 13C contribution of these carbon sources to intracellular metabolite swimming pools. Cells lacking LKB1 (Fig. 1and and Fig. S1< 0.05. We next examined the metabolic fate of glucose CEP dipeptide 1 and glutamine in A549 cells using 13C-labeled glucose and glutamine. A549/Vec cells lacking LKB1 displayed an increase in the total large quantity of metabolites derived from both glycolysis (lactate) and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle (citrate, alpha-ketoglutarate, fumarate, and malate) relative to A549 cells reexpressing LKB1 (A549/LKB1) (Fig. 2MEFs expressing bare vector CEP dipeptide 1 (CRE?, open circle) or Cre recombinase (CRE+, packed circle) following a 3T3 passage protocol. (and < 0.05. LKB1 Deletion Encourages HIF-1 Protein Manifestation in Malignancy Cells Under Normoxia. It has previously been CEP dipeptide 1 shown that LKB1-deficient MEFs display enhanced HIF-1 protein levels under normoxia (19). Acute deletion of LKB1 in MEFs also resulted in improved HIF-1 protein levels under normoxic conditions (Fig. 4mRNA by control (Cre?, open pub) or LKB1-null (Cre+, packed pub) MEFs mainly because determined by qPCR. Data were expressed relative to mRNA levels for triplicate samples and normalized relative to control (Cre?) cells. (mRNA levels in control (Cre-, open pub) or LKB1-null (Cre+, packed pub) MEFs as determined by qPCR. (cells with (+) or without (?) Cre manifestation. Cells were treated with or without 10mM after 72 h of growth. (< 0.05. HIF-1 Encourages the Growth and Survival of LKB1-Deficient Cells Under Conditions of Nutrient Limitation. Data offered in Figs. 1C3 show that loss of LKB1 promotes improved nutrient acquisition and processing, and ultimately improved cell growth. Given the importance of HIF-1 in directing rate of metabolism and bioenergetics in the absence of LKB1, we next assessed the requirement of HIF-1 in regulating the growth and survival of LKB1-deficient tumor cells. A549 cells expressing control or HIF-1 shRNAs were grown under full (25 mM) or low (0.04 mM) glucose conditions, and cell counts were measured over 72 h. A549 cells lacking CEP dipeptide 1 HIF-1 displayed a slight reduction in proliferative rate compared with control cells under full-glucose conditions (Fig. 7< 0.01. To further assess the dependence of A549 cells on HIF-1 for cell growth, we measured the proliferation of A549/Vec or A549/shHIF-1 cells under low-glucose conditions along with serum starvation and/or hypoxia (1% O2). A549 cells cultured under low glucose displayed substantial blocks in cell growth when Ptgs1 serum or oxygen was limiting (Fig. S5(test, ANOVA, or Log-rank (MantelCCox) test using Prism software (GraphPad). Statistical significance is definitely represented in numbers as follows: *< 0.05; **< 0.01; ***< 0.001. Supplementary Material Supporting Info: Click here to view. Acknowledgments We acknowledge Ralph DeBerardinis, Arnim Pause, and users of the R.G.J. laboratory for essential reading of this.