Xiaozhuo Chen

A Small-Molecule Inhibitor of Glucose Transporter 1 Downregulates Glycolysis, Induces Cell-Cycle Arrest, and Inhibits Cancer Cell Growth In Vitro and In Vivo

The functional and therapeutic importance of the Warburg effect is increasingly recognized, and glycolysis has become a target of anticancer strategies. We recently reported the identification of a group of novel small compounds that inhibit basal glucose transport and reduce cancer cell growth by a glucose deprivation–like mechanism. We hypothesized that the compounds target Glut1 and are efficacious in vivo as anticancer agents. Here, we report that a novel representative compound WZB117 not only inhibited cell growth in cancer cell lines but also inhibited cancer growth in a nude mouse model. Daily intraperitoneal injection of WZB117 at 10 mg/kg resulted in a more than 70% reduction in the size of human lung cancer of A549 cell origin. Mechanism studies showed that WZB117 inhibited glucose transport in human red blood cells (RBC), which express Glut1 as their sole glucose transporter. Cancer cell treatment with WZB117 led to decreases in levels of Glut1 protein, intracellular ATP, and glycolytic enzymes. All these changes were followed by increase in ATP-sensing enzyme AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and declines in cyclin E2 as well as phosphorylated retinoblastoma, resulting in cell-cycle arrest, senescence, and necrosis. Addition of extracellular ATP rescued compound-treated cancer cells, suggesting that the reduction of intracellular ATP plays an important role in the anticancer mechanism of the molecule. Senescence induction and the essential role of ATP were reported for the first time in Glut1 inhibitor–treated cancer cells. Thus, WZB117 is a prototype for further development of anticancer therapeutics targeting Glut1-mediated glucose transport and glucose metabolism. Mol Cancer Ther; 11(8); 1672–82. ©2012 AACR.

Antidiabetes and Anti-Obesity Activity of Lagerstroemia speciosa

The leaves of Lagerstroemia speciosa (Lythraceae), a Southeast Asian tree more commonly known as banaba, have been traditionally consumed in various forms by Philippinos for treatment of diabetes and kidney related diseases. In the 1990s, the popularity of this herbal medicine began to attract the attention of scientists worldwide. Since then, researchers have conducted numerous in vitro and in vivo studies that consistently confirmed the antidiabetic activity of banaba. Scientists have identified different components of banaba to be responsible for its activity. Using tumor cells as a cell model, corosolic acid was isolated from the methanol extract of banaba and shown to be an active compound. More recently, a different cell model and the focus on the water soluble fraction of the extract led to the discovery of other compounds. The ellagitannin Lagerstroemin was identified as an effective component of the banaba extract responsible for the activity. In a different approach, using 3T3-L1 adipocytes as a cell model and a glucose uptake assay as the functional screening method, Chen et al. showed that the banaba water extract exhibited an insulin-like glucose transport inducing activity. Coupling HPLC fractionation with a glucose uptake assay, gallotannins were identified in the banaba extract as components responsible for the activity, not corosolic acid. Penta-O-galloyl-glucopyranose (PGG) was identified as the most potent gallotannin. A comparison of published data with results obtained for PGG indicates that PGG has a significantly higher glucose transport stimulatory activity than Lagerstroemin. Chen et al. have also shown that PGG exhibits anti-adipogenic properties in addition to stimulating the glucose uptake in adipocytes. The combination of glucose uptake and anti-adipogenesis activity is not found in the current insulin mimetic drugs and may indicate a great therapeutic potential of PGG.

The Warburg effect: evolving interpretations of an established concept.

Metabolic reprogramming and altered bioenergetics have emerged as hallmarks of cancer and an area of active basic and translational cancer research. Drastically upregulated glucose transport and metabolism in most cancers regardless of the oxygen supply, a phenomenon called the Warburg effect, is a major focuses of the research. Warburg speculated that cancer cells, due to defective mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), switch to glycolysis for ATP synthesis, even in the presence of oxygen. Studies in the recent decade indicated that while glycolysis is indeed drastically upregulated in almost all cancer cells, mitochondrial respiration continues to operate normally at rates proportional to oxygen supply. There is no OXPHOS-to-glycolysis switch but rather upregulation of glycolysis. Furthermore, upregulated glycolysis appears to be for synthesis of biomass and reducing equivalents in addition to ATP production. The new finding that a significant amount of glycolytic intermediates is diverted to the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) for production of NADPH has profound implications in how cancer cells use the Warburg effect to cope with reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and oxidative stress, opening the door for anticancer interventions taking advantage of this. Recent findings in the Warburg effect and its relationship with ROS and oxidative stress controls will be reviewed. Cancer treatment strategies based on these new findings will be presented and discussed.

Small compound inhibitors of basal glucose transport inhibit cell proliferation and induce apoptosis in cancer cells via glucose-deprivation-like mechanisms.

Cancer cells depend heavily on glucose as both energy and biosynthesis sources and are found to upregulate glucose transport and switch their main energy supply pathway from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis. These molecular and metabolic changes also provide targets for cancer treatment. Here we report that novel small molecules inhibited basal glucose transport and cell proliferation, and induced apoptosis in lung and breast cancer cells without affecting much their normal cell counterparts. Cancer cells survived the compound treatment lost their capability to proliferate. Mechanistic study indicates that the cancer cell inhibition by the test compounds has a component of apoptosis and the induced apoptosis was p53-independent and caspase 3-dependent, similar to those resulted from glucose deprivation. Compound treatment also led to cell cycle arrest in G1/S phase. The inhibition of cancer cell growth was partially relieved when additional glucose was supplied to cells, suggesting that the inhibition was due to, at least in part, the inhibition of basal glucose transport. When used in combination, the test compounds demonstrated synergistic effects with anticancer drugs cisplatin or paclitaxel in inhibition of cancer cell growth. All these results suggest that these glucose transport inhibitors mimic glucose deprivation and work through inhibiting basal glucose transport. These inhibitors have the potential to complement and replace traditional glucose deprivation, which cannot be used in animals, as new tools to study the effects of glucose transport and metabolism on cancer and normal cells.

Novel inhibitors of basal glucose transport as potential anticancer agents

Cancer cells commonly show increased levels of glucose uptake and dependence. A potential strategy for the treatment of cancer may be the inhibition of basal glucose transport. We report here the synthesis of a small library of polyphenolic esters that inhibit basal glucose transport in H1299 lung and other cancer cells. These basal glucose transport inhibitors also inhibit cancer cell growth in H1299 cells, and these two activities appear to be correlated.

Oxime-based inhibitors of glucose transporter 1 displaying antiproliferative effects in cancer cells.

An analysis of the main pharmacophoric features present in the still limited number of inhibitors of glucose transporter GLUT1 led to the identification of new oxime-based inhibitors, which proved to be able to efficiently hinder glucose uptake and cell growth in H1299 lung cancer cells. The most important interactions of a representative inhibitor were indicated by a novel computational model of GLUT1, which was purposely developed to explain these results and to provide useful indications for the design and the development of new and more efficient GLUT1 inhibitors.

DNA cleavage function of seryl-histidine dipeptide and its application

Summary.The double-stranded DNA or circular plasmid DNA can be cleaved by the Ser-His dipeptide by hydrolysis of the DNA-phospho-diester bond. The proper sequential order of the amino acids serine and histidine is apparently crucial in its unique cleavage activity as compared to the other di- or tri-peptides containing one of these amino acids. An inverted sequence of this dipeptide to a His-Ser linkage renders the peptide ineffective in the cleavage of DNA. In addition to the DNA cleavage function, Ser-His is also capable of cleaving other molecules, e.g., proteins, esters and RNAs. The cooperative actions of the hydroxyl group and the basic groups in the serine and histidine or related amino acids can be found in contemporary enzymes, such as DNase, serine proteases, lipases, esterases, chymotrypsin, trypsin, and elastase, etc. The Ser-His and related oligopeptides might have played important roles in the evolution of enzyme functions.

Insulin receptor signaling activated by penta-O-galloyl-α-d-glucopyranose induces p53 and apoptosis in cancer cells

Abstractp53 is essential for cell cycle arrest and apoptosis induction while insulin receptor (IR) signaling is important for cell metabolism and proliferation and found upregulated in cancers. While IR has recently been found to be involved in apoptosis, p53 induction or apoptosis mediated through IR signaling activation has never been documented. Here, we report that the IR signaling pathway, particularly the IR-MEK pathway, mediates biological and biochemical changes in p53 and apoptosis in tumor cells. Specifically, natural compound penta-O-galloyl-α-d-glucopyranose (α-PGG), a previously characterized IR signaling activator, induced apoptosis in RKO cells without significantly affecting its normal counterpart FHC cells. α-PGG induced apoptosis in RKO cells through p53, Bax and caspase 3. Importantly, α-PGG’s ability to elevate p53 was diminished by IR inhibitor and IR-siRNA, suggesting a non-conventional role of IR as being involved in p53 induction. Further studies revealed that α-PGG activated MEK, a downstream signaling factor of IR. Blocking MEK significantly suppressed α-PGG-induced p53 and Bax elevation. All these results suggested that α-PGG induced p53, Bax, and apoptosis through the IR-MEK signaling pathway. The unique activity of α-PGG, a novel IR phosphorylation and apoptosis inducer, may offer a new therapeutic strategy for eliciting apoptotic signal and inhibiting cancer growth.

Biological and biomedical functions of Penta-O-galloyl-d-glucose and its derivatives

Penta-O-galloyl-d-glucose (PGG) is a simple hydrolysable tannin in plants. PGG exists in two anomeric forms, α-PGG and β-PGG. While β-PGG can be found in a wide variety of plants, α-PGG is rather rare in nature. Numerous studies with β-PGG revealed a wide variety of biological activities, such as anti-microbial and anti-cancer functions. Until recently, studies with α-PGG were limited by the lack of its availability. Since the development of an efficient chemical synthesis of the compound, several investigations have revealed its anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, and anti-platelet-coagulation functions. Based on structure–activity-relationship (SAR) studies with α-PGG, a variety of α-PGG-related novel compounds were synthesized and some of them have been shown to possess promising therapeutic activities. In this review, the authors will survey and evaluate the biological functions of PGG with a focus on α-PGG and its derivatives.

Constituents of an Extract of Cryptocarya rubra Housed in a Repository with Cytotoxic and Glucose Transport Inhibitory Effects

A new alkylated chalcone (1), a new 1,16-hexadecanediol diester (2), and eight known compounds were isolated from a dichloromethane-soluble repository extract of the leaves and twigs of Cryptocarya rubra collected in Hawaii. The structures of the new compounds were determined by interpretation of their spectroscopic data, and the absolute configurations of the two known cryptocaryanone-type flavonoid dimers, (+)-bicaryanone A (3) and (+)-chalcocaryanone C (4), were ascertained by analysis of their electronic circular dichroism and NOESY NMR spectra. All compounds isolated were evaluated against HT-29 human colon cancer cells, and, of these, (+)-cryptocaryone (5) was found to be potently cytotoxic toward this cancer cell line, with an IC50 value of 0.32 μM. This compound also exhibited glucose transport inhibitory activity when tested in a glucose uptake assay.