Sakino Toue

Screening of Toxicity Biomarkers for Methionine Excess in Rats

Although many animal studies have reported that dietary excess of methionine causes toxic changes including growth suppression and hemolytic anemia, the biochemical mechanism and biomarkers for methionine toxicity have not been well elucidated. The present study aimed to identify toxicity biomarkers from plasma metabolites in rats fed excessive methionine. Young growing rats were fed graded doses of additional methionine for 2 wk. Cluster analysis of multivariate correlations was performed on the physiological and toxicity variables with plasma metabolites detected by GC/MS, amino acid analyzer, and thiol-specific analysis. Indicative variables for hemolysis such as splenic nonheme iron content and plasma bilirubin were grouped in the same cluster as many methionine metabolites. Homocysteine and some undefined metabolites in this cluster were found to be strong discriminators between nontoxic and toxic levels of methionine intake. Product-to-precursor ratios of each methionine metabolite demonstrated that excessive methionine intake caused a marked decrease only in the ratio of cystathionine to homocysteine, suggesting that metabolism from homocysteine to cystathionine would be rate limiting in the disposal of excessive methionine. Collectively from these results, homocysteine appeared to be the most plausible biomarker to assess methionine excess as a surrogate marker both for toxicity and for setting a metabolic upper limit.

Transcriptomics and Metabolomics of Dietary Leucine Excess

Changes were investigated in plasma metabolites and physiological and toxicological variables in rats fed for 2 wk on a basal diet or diets with 1.5, 5, 10, 15, and 30% added leucine. In the same experiment, the changes in gene expression in livers of rats fed the basal diet or diets with 5% and 15% added leucine were investigated using DNA microarrays. Cluster analysis of multivariate correlations of metabolites and physiological and toxicological variables indicated that the variables associated with excess nitrogen clustered together with leucine and alpha-ketoisocaproate. The gene expression data, although preliminary, indicated that there was little change in the expression of enzymes of the catabolic pathways for leucine but that there were changes in enzymes associated with nitrogen metabolism and other pathways downstream of leucine catabolism. The data seem consistent with excess leucine exerting its effects through the overloading of nitrogen metabolism and that urea or alpha-ketoisocaproate could be an early marker for the upper limit of adequate intake.

Impacts of CD44 knockdown in cancer cells on tumor and host metabolic systems revealed by quantitative imaging mass spectrometry

CD44 expressed in cancer cells was shown to stabilize cystine transporter (xCT) that uptakes cystine and excretes glutamate to supply cysteine as a substrate for reduced glutathione (GSH) for survival. While targeting CD44 serves as a potentially therapeutic stratagem to attack cancer growth and chemoresistance, the impact of CD44 targeting in cancer cells on metabolic systems of tumors and host tissues in vivo remains to be fully determined. This study aimed to reveal effects of CD44 silencing on alterations in energy metabolism and sulfur-containing metabolites in vitro and in vivo using capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry and quantitative imaging mass spectrometry (Q-IMS), respectively. In an experimental model of xenograft transplantation of human colon cancer HCT116 cells in superimmunodeficient NOG mice, snap-frozen liver tissues containing metastatic tumors were examined by Q-IMS. As reported previously, short hairpin CD44 RNA interference (shCD44) in cancer cells caused significant regression of tumor growth in the host liver. Under these circumstances, the CD44 knockdown suppressed polyamines, GSH and energy charges not only in metastatic tumors but also in the host liver. In culture, HCT116 cells treated with shCD44 decreased total amounts of methionine-pool metabolites including spermidine and spermine, and reactive cysteine persulfides, suggesting roles of these metabolites for cancer growth. Collectively, these results suggest that CD44 expressed in cancer accounts for a key regulator of metabolic interplay between tumor and the host tissue.

A 4-week toxicity study of methionine in male rats.

To examine 4-week toxicity of l-methionine (methionine), 5-week-old Fisher strain male rats were fed on diets containing 0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.9, 2.7 (w/w) of added methionine. Although no deaths were recorded, the highest dose of methionine (2.7% [w/w] of diet) reduced food intake and significantly suppressed growth rate. Growth suppression was characterized by an increase in hemolysis, splenic, and hepatic accumulation of hemosiderin, hemolytic anemia, and promotion of hematopoiesis. Other changes observed in the highest methionine intake group were a decrease in white blood cell count, thymus atrophy, and histological abnormalities in the adrenal gland and testis. Small, but significant, growth suppression, accompanied by some minor changes in plasma biochemical parameters, was also seen in rats fed on a test diet containing 0.9% (w/w) of additional methionine. Thus, no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) and lowest-observed-adverse-effect level (LOAEL) of diet-added methionine were determined at 0.3% and 0.9% (w/w), corresponding to 236 and 705 mg/kg/d body weight, respectively. Since the basal diet contained protein-bound methionine at 0.5% (w/w), NOAEL and LOAEL of total dietary methionine were estimated at 0.8% and 1.4% (w/w) of diet.

Abstract 719: Accumulation of amino acids in metastatic foci of human colon cancer xenografts revealed by newly developed method for imaging mass spectrometry of amino acids.

MALDI imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) provides information about the spatial distribution of metabolites within thin slices of tissue, and has been used to elucidate complex phenotypes under various physiological conditions. Previously, our group reported distinct spatial distribution of a variety of metabolites in experimental model of hepatic micrometastasis of the solid tumor. However the metabolic properties in tumor and host tissues are not fully characterized, because of difficulty in visualizing most amino acids, due to their lower ionization efficiency. Here, by using of p-N,N,N-trimethylammonioanily N’-hydroxysuccinimidyl carbamate iodide (TAHS) as a derivatizing reagent, we have successfully developed the method for the detection of various amino acids simultaneously by MALDI-MS on tissue section. We prepared liver section from hepatic metastasis model of human colon cancer, and then performed MALDI-IMS. To compare the signal intensities of amino acids among the different sections, we normalized the MALDI-IMS data with the quantified value of each amino acid obtained from capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry. The result indicated the amount of glycine, phenylalanine, leucine, glutamate, and glutamine were significantly elevated in metastatic foci compared to liver parenchyma. Other metabolites such as ATP and glutathione also accumulated in metastatic foci, and these results suggested that increased amino acid pool were required to maintain ATP and GSH levels in tumor. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that novel imaging technique by using of IMS combined with on-tissue TAHS derivatization enables the visualization of amino acid distribution in tissue. The current method could be powerful tool to elucidate the mechanism for metabolic changes of cancer disease in vivo. Citation Format: Sakino Toue, Yuki Sugiura, Akiko Kubo, Mitsuyo Ohmura, Sachise Karakawa, Toshimi Mizukoshi, Junya Yoneda, Hiroshi Miyano, Yasushi Noguchi, Tsuyoshi Kobayashi, Yasuaki Kabe, Makoto Suematsu. Accumulation of amino acids in metastatic foci of human colon cancer xenografts revealed by newly developed method for imaging mass spectrometry of amino acids. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 719. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-719