Geng Feng, Guo Deliang
Department of Radiation Oncology, The Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center and College of Medicine, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Intern Med Rev (Wash D C). 2017 May;3(5). doi: 10.18103/imr.v3i5.443.
Lipid droplets (LDs) are subcellular organelles that store large amounts of the neutral lipids, triglycerides (TG) and/or cholesteryl esters (CE). LDs are commonly formed in adipocytes, liver cells and macrophages, and their formation has been shown to be associated with the progression of metabolic diseases, i.e., obesity, fatty liver and atherosclerosis. Interestingly, LDs are also found in some tumor tissues. We recently showed that LDs are prevalent in glioblastoma (GBM), the most deadly brain tumor, but are not detectable in low-grade gliomas and normal brain tissues, suggesting that LDs may serve as a novel diagnostic biomarker for GBM. This short review will briefly introduce LD biology, summarize recent observations about LDs in several types of cancer tissues, and discuss LD formation in GBM. Moreover, we will highlight the role of SOAT1 (sterol-O transferase 1), a key enzyme regulating CE synthesis and LD formation in GBM, in the regulation of SREBP (sterol regulatory-element binding protein) activation. The therapeutic potential of LDs and SOAT1 will be discussed.
脂滴（LDs）是储存大量中性脂质、甘油三酯（TG）和/或胆固醇酯（CE）的亚细胞器。脂滴通常在脂肪细胞、肝细胞和巨噬细胞中形成，并且其形成已被证明与代谢性疾病的进展相关，即肥胖、脂肪肝和动脉粥样硬化。有趣的是，脂滴也存在于一些肿瘤组织中。我们最近发现脂滴在最致命的脑肿瘤胶质母细胞瘤（GBM）中普遍存在，但在低级别胶质瘤和正常脑组织中未检测到，这表明脂滴可能作为GBM的一种新型诊断生物标志物。这篇简短的综述将简要介绍脂滴生物学，总结近期在几种类型癌症组织中关于脂滴的观察结果，并讨论GBM中的脂滴形成。此外，我们将强调SOAT1（固醇-O-转移酶1）的作用，它是调节GBM中CE合成和脂滴形成的关键酶，在固醇调节元件结合蛋白（SREBP）激活的调节中发挥作用。还将讨论脂滴和SOAT1的治疗潜力。
