Involvement of GLUT1-mediated glucose transport and metabolism in gefitinib resistance of non-small-cell lung cancer cells.

Involvement of GLUT1-mediated glucose transport and metabolism in gefitinib resistance of non-small-cell lung cancer cells. Oncotarget. 2018 Aug 24;9(66):32667-32679 Authors: Suzuki S, Okada M, Takeda H, Kuramoto K, Sanomachi T, Togashi K, Seino S, Yamamoto M, Yoshioka T, Kitanaka C Abstract Use of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors represented by gefitinib and erlotinib has become the standard of treatment for non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) with activating EGFR mutations. However, the majority of NSCLCs, which overexpress EGFR without such mutations, are resistant to EGFR inhibitors, and the mechanism(s) behind such primary resistance of NSCLCs without activating EGFR mutations to EGFR inhibitors still remains poorly understood. Here in this study, we show that glucose metabolism mediated by GLUT1, a facilitative glucose transporter, is involved in gefitinib resistance of NSCLC cells. We found that GLUT1 expression and glucose uptake were increased in resistant NSCLC cells after gefitinib treatment and that genetic as well as pharmacological inhibition of GLUT1 sensitized not only NSCLC cells with primary resistance but also those with acquired resistance to gefitinib. In vivo, the combination of systemic gefitinib and a GLUT1 inhibitor, both of which failed to inhibit tumor growth when administered alone, significantly inhibited the growth of xenograft tumors formed by the implantation of NSCLC cells with wild...
Source: Oncotarget - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Oncotarget Source Type: research