1. Metabolomics reveals that CAF-derived lipids promote colorectal cancer peritoneal metastasis by enhancing membrane fluidity.
- Author
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Peng S, Li Y, Huang M, Tang G, Xie Y, Chen D, Hu Y, Yu T, Cai J, Yuan Z, Wang H, Wang H, Luo Y, and Liu X
- Subjects
- Humans, Lipids, Membrane Fluidity, Metabolomics, Tumor Microenvironment, Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts metabolism, Colonic Neoplasms metabolism, Colorectal Neoplasms metabolism, Peritoneal Neoplasms metabolism, Peritoneal Neoplasms pathology
- Abstract
Patients with peritoneal metastasis (PM) of colorectal cancer (CRC) have poorer overall survival outcomes than those without PM. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are a major component of the tumor microenvironment and mediate CRC progression and PM. It is imperative to identify and develop novel therapeutic targets for PM-CRC driven by CAFs. Using lipidomics, we reveal that the abundance of phosphatidylcholine (PC) with unsaturated acyl chains was increased in clinical PM-CRC specimens. Additionally, we found that CAFs were present at a higher relative abundance in primary PM-CRC tumors and that membrane fluidity in CRC cells was increased after incubation with CAF-conditioned medium (CM) through three independent methods: lipidomics, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), and generalized polarization. Then, we found that increased membrane fluidity can enhance glucose uptake and metabolism, as supported by real-time bioenergetics analysis and U-
13 C glucose labeling. Interestingly, stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 (SCD), the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids (uS-FAs), was expressed at low levels in PM and associated with poor prognosis in CRC patients. Importantly, by untargeted metabolomics analysis and fatty acid ([U-13 C]-stearic acid) tracing analyses, we found that CRC cells take up lipids and lipid-like metabolites secreted from CAFs, which may compensate for low SCD expression. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that sodium palmitate (C16:0) treatment could decrease the CAF-induced change in cell membrane fluidity, limit glucose metabolism, suppress cell invasiveness, and impair tumor growth and intraperitoneal dissemination. An increased C16:0 concentration was shown to induce apoptosis linked to lipotoxicity. Furthermore, C16:0 effectively enhanced the antitumor activity of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in vitro and was well tolerated in vivo . Taken together, these findings suggest that adding the saturated fatty acid (S-FA) C16:0 to neoadjuvant chemotherapy may open new opportunities for treating PM-CRC in the future., Competing Interests: Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists., (© The author(s).)- Published
- 2022
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