Metabolism-Related Gene Expression in Circulating Tumor Cells from Patients with Early Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

A Zafeiriadou; I Kollias; T Londra; E Tsaroucha; V Georgoulias; A Kotsakis; E Lianidou; A Markou

doi:10.3390/cancers14133237

Metabolism-Related Gene Expression in Circulating Tumor Cells from Patients with Early Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Cancers (Basel). 2022 Jun 30;14(13):3237. doi: 10.3390/cancers14133237.

Authors

A Zafeiriadou¹, I Kollias¹, T Londra¹, E Tsaroucha², V Georgoulias³, A Kotsakis⁴, E Lianidou¹, A Markou¹

Affiliations

¹ Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells Lab, Lab of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15771 Athens, Greece.
² 'Sotiria' General Hospital for Chest Diseases, 11527 Athens, Greece.
³ First Department of Medical Oncology, IASO General Hospital of Athens, 15123 Athens, Greece.
⁴ Department of Medical Oncology, University General Hospital of Larissa, 41334 Larissa, Greece.

Abstract

Purpose: Metabolic reprogramming is now characterized as one of the core hallmarks of cancer, and it has already been shown that the altered genomic profile of metabolically rewired cancer cells can give valuable information. In this study, we quantified three Metabolism-Related Gene (MRG) transcripts in the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) of early stage NSCLC patients and evaluated their associations with epithelial and EMT markers.

Experimental design: We first developed and analytically validated highly sensitive RT-qPCR assays for the quantification of HK2, MCT1 and PHGDH transcripts, and further studied the expression of MRGs in CTCs that were isolated using a size-dependent microfluidic device (Parsortix, Angle) from the peripheral blood of: (a) 46 NSCLC patients at baseline, (b) 39/46 of these patients one month after surgery, (c) 10/46 patients at relapse and (d) 10 pairs of cancerous and adjacent non-cancerous FFPE tissues from the same NSCLC patients. Epithelial and EMT markers were also evaluated.

Results: MCT1 and HK2 were differentially expressed between HD and NSCLC patients. An overexpression of MCT1 was detected in 15/46 (32.6%) and 3/10 (30%) patients at baseline and at progression disease (PD), respectively, whereas an overexpression of HK2 was detected in 30.4% and 0% of CTCs in the same group of samples. The expression levels of all tested MRGs decreased in CTCs one month after surgery, but a significant increase was noticed at the time of relapse for PHGDH and MCT1 only. The expression levels of HK2 and MCT1 were associated with the overexpression of mesenchymal markers (TWIST-1 and VIM).

Conclusion: An overexpression of MRGs was observed at a high frequency in the CTCs isolated from early NSCLC patients, thereby supporting the role of MRGs in metastatic processes. The glycolytic and mesenchymal subpopulation of CTCs was significantly predominant compared to CTCs that were glycolytic but not mesenchymal-like. Our data indicate that MRGs merit further evaluation through large and well-defined cohort studies.

Keywords: EMT; Warburg effect; circulating tumor cells; epithelial markers; glycolysis; molecular characterization.

Grants and funding

1964/Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT)