A BSTRACT : Recently, glucose deprivation-induced oxidative stress has been shown to cause cytotoxicity, activation of signal transduction (i.e., ERK1, ERK2, JNK, and Lyn kinase), and increased expression of genes associated with malignancy (i.e., bFGF and c-Myc) in MCF-7/ADR human breast cancer cells. These results have led to the proposal that intracellular oxidation/ reduction reactions involving hydroperoxides and thiols may provide a mechanistic link between metabolism, signal transduction, and gene expression in these human tumor cells. The current study shows that several other transformed human cell types appear to be more susceptible to glucose deprivationinduced cytotoxicity and oxidative stress than untransformed human cell types. In a matched pair of normal and SV40-transformed human fibroblasts the cytotoxic process is shown to be dependent upon ambient O 2 concentration. A theoretical model to explain the results is presented and implications to unifying modern theories of cancer are discussed.

We previously observed that glucose deprivation induces cell death in multidrug-resistant human breast carcinoma cells (MCF-7/ADR). As a follow up we wished to test the hypothesis that metabolic oxidative stress was the causative process or at least the link between causative processes behind the cytotoxicity. In the studies described here, we demonstrate that mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) was activated within 3 min of being in glucose-free medium and remained activated for 3 h. Glucose deprivation for 2-4 h also caused oxidative stress as evidenced by a 3-fold greater steady state concentration of oxidized glutathione and a 3-fold increase in pro-oxidant production. Glucose and glutamate treatment rapidly suppressed MAPK activation and rescued cells from cytotoxicity. Glutamate and the peroxide scavenger, pyruvate, rescued the cells from cell killing as well as suppressed pro-oxidant production. In addition the thiol antioxidant, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, rescued cells from glucose deprivation-induced cytotoxicity and suppressed MAPK activation. These results suggest that glucose deprivation-induced cytotoxicity and alterations in MAPK signal transduction are mediated by oxidative stress in MCF-7/ADR. These results also support the speculation that a common mechanism of glucose deprivation-induced cytotoxicity in mammalian cells may involve metabolic oxidative stress.

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We investigated the effect of hypoglycemic treatment on the activation of the AP-1 transcription factors and the regulation of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) gene expression in multidrug resistant human breast carcinoma MCF-7/ADR cells. Northern blot and gel mobility shift assays showed that hypoglycemic treatment induced c-jun and c-fos gene expression, AP-1 binding activity, as well as bFGF gene expression. Moreover, transfected cells expressing high levels of abnormal c-Jun protein exhibited a reduction in the bFGF protein levels compared to parental cells. A potent protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor, H-7 (60 micrograms/ml) suppressed the stress-induced bFGF gene expression. Our study also demonstrated that H-7 did not facilitate the decay of bFGF mRNA. Thus, the suppression of bFGF gene expression by treatment with H-7 was due to the effect of the drug on the synthesis of bFGF mRNA rather than the stability of bFGF mRNA. Our data suggest that hypoglycemia-induced bFGF gene expression is mediated through the activation of PKC and the AP-1 transcription factors.

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