Protein Sialylation Regulates a Gene Expression Signature that Promotes Breast Cancer Cell Pathogenicity

ACS Chem Biol. 2016 Aug 19;11(8):2131-9. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.6b00433. Epub 2016 Jul 22.

Abstract

Many mechanisms have been proposed for how heightened aerobic glycolytic metabolism fuels cancer pathogenicity, but there are still many unexplored pathways. Here, we have performed metabolomic profiling to map glucose incorporation into metabolic pathways upon transformation of mammary epithelial cells by 11 commonly mutated human oncogenes. We show that transformation of mammary epithelial cells by oncogenic stimuli commonly shunts glucose-derived carbons into synthesis of sialic acid, a hexosamine pathway metabolite that is converted to CMP-sialic acid by cytidine monophosphate N-acetylneuraminic acid synthase (CMAS) as a precursor to glycoprotein and glycolipid sialylation. We show that CMAS knockdown leads to elevations in intracellular sialic acid levels, a depletion of cellular sialylation, and alterations in the expression of many cancer-relevant genes to impair breast cancer pathogenicity. Our study reveals the heretofore unrecognized role of sialic acid metabolism and protein sialylation in regulating the expression of genes that maintain breast cancer pathogenicity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Breast Neoplasms / enzymology
  • Breast Neoplasms / metabolism*
  • Breast Neoplasms / pathology
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic*
  • Gene Knockdown Techniques
  • Heterografts
  • Humans
  • Metabolomics
  • Mice, SCID
  • N-Acetylneuraminic Acid / metabolism*
  • N-Acylneuraminate Cytidylyltransferase / genetics
  • N-Acylneuraminate Cytidylyltransferase / metabolism
  • Neoplasm Proteins / metabolism*
  • Transcriptome

Substances

  • Neoplasm Proteins
  • N-Acylneuraminate Cytidylyltransferase
  • N-Acetylneuraminic Acid