Involvement of cancer-derived EMT cells in the accumulation of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose in the hypoxic cancer microenvironment

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 9668
• Main Authors: Sugita, Sachi, Yamato, Masanori, Hatabu, Toshimitsu, Kataoka, Yosky
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17-05-2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/67; 692/4028; Accumulation; Autoradiography; Cancer; Glucose metabolism; Glycolysis; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hypoxia; Immunohistochemistry; Mesenchyme; Microenvironments; multidisciplinary; Phenotypes; Positron emission tomography; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Tumors; Xenografts
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-88414-1

A high rate of glycolysis, one of the most common features of cancer, is used in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging to visualize tumor tissues using
18
F-fluorodeoxyglucose (
18
F-FDG). Heterogeneous intratumoral distribution of
18
F-FDG in tissues has been established in some types of cancer, and the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) has been correlated with poor prognosis. However, the phenotype of cells that show high
18
F-FDG accumulation in tumors remains unknown. Here, we combined quantitative micro-autoradiography with fluorescence immunohistochemistry to simultaneously visualize
18
F-FDG distribution, the expression of multiple proteins, and hypoxic regions in the cancer microenvironment of a human A431 xenograft tumor in C.B-17/Icr-
scid
/
scid
mice. We found that the highest
18
F-FDG accumulation was in cancer-derived cells undergoing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in hypoxic regions, implicating these regions as a major contributor to increased glucose metabolism, as measured by
18
F-FDG-PET.