M Wahl

Tumors contain oxygenated and hypoxic regions, so the tumor cell population is heterogeneous. Hypoxic tumor cells primarily use glucose for glycolytic energy production and release lactic acid, creating a lactate gradient that mirrors the oxygen gradient in the tumor. By contrast, oxygenated tumor cells have been thought to primarily use glucose for oxidative energy production. Although lactate is generally considered a waste product, we now show that it is a prominent substrate that fuels the oxidative metabolism of oxygenated tumor cells. There is therefore a symbiosis in which glycolytic and oxidative tumor cells mutually regulate their access to energy metabolites. We identified monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1) as the prominent path for lactate uptake by a human cervix squamous carcinoma cell line that preferentially utilized lactate for oxidative metabolism. Inhibiting MCT1 with alpha-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamate (CHC) or siRNA in these cells induced a switch from lactate-fueled respiration to glycolysis. A similar switch from lactate-fueled respiration to glycolysis by oxygenated tumor cells in both a mouse model of lung carcinoma and xenotransplanted human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells was observed after administration of CHC. This retarded tumor growth, as the hypoxic/glycolytic tumor cells died from glucose starvation, and rendered the remaining cells sensitive to irradiation. As MCT1 was found to be expressed by an array of primary human tumors, we suggest that MCT1 inhibition has clinical antitumor potential.

In tyrosinase-positive amelanotic melanoma cells, inactive tyrosinase accumulates in the endoplasmic reticulum. Based on studies described here, we propose that aberrant vacuolar proton ATPase (V-ATPase)-mediated proton transport in melanoma cells disrupts tyrosinase trafficking through the secretory pathway. Amelanotic but not melanotic melanoma cells or normal melanocytes display elevated proton export as observed by the acidification of the extracellular medium and their ability to maintain neutral intracellular pH. Tyrosinase activity and transit through the Golgi were restored by either maintaining the melanoma cells in alkaline medium (pH 7.4-7.7) or by restricting glucose uptake. The translocation of tyrosinase out of the endoplasmic reticulum and the induction of cell pigmentation in the presence of the ionophore monensin or the specific V-ATPase inhibitors concanamycin A and bafilomycin A1 supported a role for V-ATPases in this process. Because it was previously shown that V-ATPase activity is increased in solid tumors in response to an acidified environment, the appearance of hypopigmented cells in tyrosinase-positive melanoma tumors may indicate the onset of enhanced glycolysis and extracellular acidification, conditions known to favor metastatic spread and resistance to weak base chemotherapeutic drugs.

Melanoma cells in vivo maintain intracellular pH (pHi) in a viable range despite an extracellular tumor pH (pHe) that is typically below 7.0. In general, three families of transporters are capable of removing metabolic protons, but the specific transporters responsible for the maintenance of pHi at low pHe in melanomas have not been identified. Although the transporters exist in most cells, an inhibitor would be predicted to have selectivity for cells located in an acidic tumor bed because cells in that environment would be expected to have transporters chronically activated. In this report, the levels and extent of expression of the Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE-1) and two of the H+-linked monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs) were evaluated in three melanoma cell lines. The effects of inhibitors of each transporter were tested at an extracellular pH (pHe) of 7.3, 6.7, or 6.5 in melanoma cells that were grown at pHe 7.3 or 6.7. The activity of MCT isoform 1 (MCT-1) was up-regulated in three melanoma cell lines at low pHe, but that of NHE-1 was not. Furthermore, NHE-1 activity was lower in the melanomas than in other normal and malignant cell lines that were tested. Reverse transcription-PCR using primers specific for MCT-1, MCT-4, and NHE-1 showed that expression of none of these transporters was reproducibly up-regulated at the level of transcription when cells were grown at pHe 6.7 instead of pHe 7.3. Ex vivo experiments using DB-1 human melanoma xenografts grown in severe combined immunodeficient mice found that MCT-1 and not NHE-1 was a major determinant of DB-1 tumor cell pHi. Taken together, the data indicate that MCTs are major determinants of pH regulation in melanoma. In contrast, keratinocytes and melanocytes under low pHe conditions relied on NHE-1. Inhibitors of MCTs thus have great potential to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs that work best at low pHi, such as alkylating agents and platinum-containing compounds, and they should be selective for cells in an acidic tumor bed. In most tissues, it is proposed that the NHE-1 could compensate for an inhibited MCT to prevent acidification, but in melanoma cells this did not occur. Therefore, MCT inhibitors may be particularly effective against malignant melanoma.