Includes bibliographical references / Cancer cells undergo metabolism that is significantly different to normal cells, with an increased dependence on glucose metabolism as a hallmark of most cancers. Changes in global gene expression patterns are the major driving forces behind cancer progression. These changes trigger events that result in the dysregulation of key enzymes associated with metabolic processes. Gene expression profiling studies done previously in our laboratory identified a group of genes involved in glucose metabolism to be differentially expressed in cervical cancer patient material. Of these, Phosphoglucomutase 1 (PGM1) was identified to have elevated expression in the cancer group. PGM1 is a phosphotransferase that catalyses the reversible conversion of the glycogen breakdown product, glucose-1-phosphate into glucose-6-phosphate, a substrate for glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway. This places PGM1 at a critical traffic point of glucose metabolism. In this study we investigated the expression, regulation and biological significance of PGM1 in cancer cells. Our results showed that PGM1 expression was elevated in cervical cancer tissue compared to normal. Its expression was also high in cervical, oesophageal and breast cancer cell lines. Elevated PGM1 expression associated with high promoter activity as well as with E2F and HIF1α activities in cancer cells. PGM1 expression at the level of mRNA, protein and promoter activation was significantly stimulated in hypoxia mimicking conditions. Our data showed that PGM1 expression in cancer cells was required mainly for glycogen accumulation with marginal changes on glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway. While PGM1 expression did not appear necessary for cancer cell proliferation in normoxia and nutrient sufficiency, our data shows that it is required for proliferation under conditions of glucose deprivation combined with hypoxia. Together these findings suggest that PGM1 expression is altered in cancer cells, that it is required for aberrant glycogen expression in cancer cells and that it has a role in cancer biology during severe stress conditions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/16694 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Maranyane, Hapiloe 'Mabaruti |
| Contributors | Leaner, Virna D |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Health Sciences, Division of Medical Biochemistry |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Thesis, Doctoral, PhD |
| Format | application/pdf |
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