PURPOSE

Metabolic reprogramming is now characterized as one of the core hallmarks of cancer, and it has already been shown that the altered genomic profile of metabolically rewired cancer cells can give valuable information. In this study, we quantified three Metabolism-Related Gene (MRG) transcripts in the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) of early stage NSCLC patients and evaluated their associations with epithelial and EMT markers.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

We first developed and analytically validated highly sensitive RT-qPCR assays for the quantification of , and transcripts, and further studied the expression of MRGs in CTCs that were isolated using a size-dependent microfluidic device (Parsortix, Angle) from the peripheral blood of: (a) 46 NSCLC patients at baseline, (b) 39/46 of these patients one month after surgery, (c) 10/46 patients at relapse and (d) 10 pairs of cancerous and adjacent non-cancerous FFPE tissues from the same NSCLC patients. Epithelial and EMT markers were also evaluated.

RESULTS

and were differentially expressed between HD and NSCLC patients. An overexpression of was detected in 15/46 (32.6%) and 3/10 (30%) patients at baseline and at progression disease (PD), respectively, whereas an overexpression of was detected in 30.4% and 0% of CTCs in the same group of samples. The expression levels of all tested MRGs decreased in CTCs one month after surgery, but a significant increase was noticed at the time of relapse for and only. The expression levels of and were associated with the overexpression of mesenchymal markers ( and ).

CONCLUSION

An overexpression of MRGs was observed at a high frequency in the CTCs isolated from early NSCLC patients, thereby supporting the role of MRGs in metastatic processes. The glycolytic and mesenchymal subpopulation of CTCs was significantly predominant compared to CTCs that were glycolytic but not mesenchymal-like. Our data indicate that MRGs merit further evaluation through large and well-defined cohort studies.