Metabolites (Oct 2020)

Profiling of Metabolic Differences between Hematopoietic Stem Cells and Acute/Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

  • Byung Hoo Song,
  • Su Young Son,
  • Hyun Kyu Kim,
  • Tae Won Ha,
  • Jeong Suk Im,
  • Aeli Ryu,
  • Hyeji Jeon,
  • Hee Yong Chung,
  • Jae Sang Oh,
  • Choong Hwan Lee,
  • Man Ryul Lee

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo10110427
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 11
p. 427

Abstract

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Although many studies have been conducted on leukemia, only a few have analyzed the metabolomic profiles of various leukemic cells. In this study, the metabolomes of THP-1, U937, KG-1 (acute myelogenous leukemia, AML), K562 (chronic myelogenous leukemia, CML), and cord blood-derived CD34-positive hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and specific metabolic alterations were found using multivariate statistical analysis. Compared to HSCs, leukemia cell metabolomes were found to have significant alterations, among which three were related to amino acids, three to sugars, and five to fatty acids. Compared to CML, four metabolomes were observed specifically in AML. Given that overall more metabolites are present in leukemia cells than in HSCs, we observed that the activation of glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) metabolism facilitated the incidence of leukemia and the proliferation of leukemic cells. Analysis of metabolome profiles specifically present in HSCs and leukemia cells greatly increases our basic understanding of cellular metabolic characteristics, which is valuable fundamental knowledge for developing novel anticancer drugs targeting leukemia metabolism.

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