Edited by Mike Shipston Monocarboxylate transporter 4 (MCT4) is an H ؉-coupled symporter highly expressed in metastatic tumors and at inflammatory sites undergoing hypoxia or the Warburg effect. At these sites, extracellular lactate contributes to malignancy and immune response evasion. Intriguingly, at 30-40 mM, the reported K m of MCT4 for lactate is more than 1 order of magnitude higher than physiological or even pathological lactate levels. MCT4 is not thought to transport pyruvate. Here we have characterized cell lactate and pyruvate dynamics using the FRET sensors Laconic and Pyronic. Dominant MCT4 permeability was demonstrated in various cell types by pharmacological means and by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated deletion. Respective K m values for lactate uptake were 1.7, 1.2, and 0.7 mM in MDA-MB-231 cells, macrophages, and HEK293 cells expressing recombinant MCT4. In MDA-MB-231 cells MCT4 exhibited a K m for pyruvate of 4.2 mM, as opposed to >150 mM reported previously. Parallel assays with the pH-sensitive dye 2,7-bis-(carboxyethyl)-5-(and-6)-carboxyfluorescein (BCECF) indicated that previous K m estimates based on substrate-induced acidification were severely biased by confounding pH-regulatory mechanisms. Numerical simulation using revised kinetic parameters revealed that MCT4, but not the related transporters MCT1 and MCT2, endows cells with the ability to export lactate in highlactate microenvironments. In conclusion, MCT4 is a high-affinity lactate transporter with physiologically relevant affinity for pyruvate. Cancer cells ferment glucose to lactate in the presence of oxygen, a phenomenon originally described by Otto Warburg and colleagues in the 1920s and later found to promote tumor growth and malignancy (1-4). In addition to fostering glycolysis by end product removal, cytosolic alkalinization, and NADH recycling, the co-extrusion of lactate and protons causes inter

Mitochondria generate ATP and building blocks for cell growth and regeneration, using pyruvate as the main substrate. Here we introduce PyronicSF, a user-friendly GFP-based sensor of improved dynamic range that enables real-time subcellular quantitation of mitochondrial pyruvate transport, concentration and flux. We report that cultured mouse astrocytes maintain mitochondrial pyruvate in the low micromolar range, below cytosolic pyruvate, which means that the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier MPC is poised to exert ultrasensitive control on the balance between respiration and anaplerosis/gluconeogenesis. The functionality of the sensor in living tissue is demonstrated in the brain of Drosophila melanogaster larvae. Mitochondrial subpopulations are known to coexist within a given cell, which differ in their morphology, mobility, membrane potential, and vicinity to other organelles. The present tool can be used to investigate how mitochondrial diversity relates to metabolism, to study the role of MPC in disease, and to screen for small-molecule MPC modulators.

The intercellular transport of lactate is crucial for the astrocyte-to-neuron lactate shuttle (ANLS), a model of brain energetics according to which neurons are fueled by astrocytic lactate. In this study we show that the Drosophila chaski gene encodes a monocarboxylate transporter protein (MCT/SLC16A) which functions as a lactate/pyruvate transporter, as demonstrated by heterologous expression in mammalian cell culture using a genetically encoded FRET nanosensor. chaski expression is prominent in the Drosophila central nervous system and it is particularly enriched in glia over neurons. chaski mutants exhibit defects in a high energy demanding process such as synaptic transmission, as well as in locomotion and survival under nutritional stress. Remarkably, locomotion and survival under nutritional stress defects are restored by chaski expression in glia cells. Our findings are consistent with a major role for intercellular lactate shuttling in the brain metabolism of Drosophila.The function of the nervous system requires a large supply of energy, as exemplified by the fact that in the mammalian brain, 50-60% of total ATP produced in the brain is used to support ion transport 1 ; in flies, retinal photoreceptor cells consume about 10% of the ATP production of the whole animal 2 . Our current view about the field of brain energetics has evolved from a one centered in neurons into a one in which astrocytes and neurons play complementary roles to support the high demand of excitability and synaptic activity. In this view, the metabolic communication between neurons and glia is crucial to sustain brain function, relevating the need to unravel the mechanisms that underly this communication.Within cells, several glucose-derived metabolic intermediates can subsequently be oxidized for energy production (i.e. lactate, pyruvate, glutamate, or acetate) 3 , while ketone bodies are mainly used during development and starvation 4,5 . In mammals, it has been estimated that over 10% of glucose entering the brain is converted to lactate despite normal oxygen levels, a metabolic process known as aerobic glycolysis 6 . Lactate production through aerobic glycolysis is a metabolic feature of astrocytes 7,8 . The high-energy demand as the result of glutamatergic synaptic activity is thought to stimulate aerobic glycolysis in astrocytes 9 producing lactate that is secreted and used by neurons as energy source. This metabolic interaction has been termed the astrocyte-neuron lactate shuttle (ANLS) hypothesis 9,10 . Recent evidence from invertebrates supports that metabolic compartmentalization and coupling of neurons and glial cells is a conserved, fundamental feature of bilaterian nervous systems independent of their size 11 . Moreover, the lack of an apparent detrimental effect of glycolytic enzyme deletion in Drosophila neurons suggests that insects may have evolved an extreme version of ANLS, in which neurons would be fueled by lactate and/or alanine produced by glial cells 11 . In vertebrates, lactate is co-transported with proton...

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Nitric oxide (NO) is an intercellular messenger involved in multiple bodily functions. Prolonged NO exposure irreversibly inhibits respiration by covalent modification of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase, a phenomenon of pathological relevance. However, the speed and potency of NO's metabolic effects at physiological concentrations are incompletely characterized. To this end, we set out to investigate the metabolic effects of NO in cultured astrocytes from mice by taking advantage of the high spatiotemporal resolution afforded by genetically encoded Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) nanosensors. NO exposure resulted in immediate and reversible intracellular glucose depletion and lactate accumulation. Consistent with cytochrome oxidase involvement, the glycolytic effect was enhanced at a low oxygen level and became irreversible at a high NO concentration or after prolonged exposure. Measurements of both glycolytic rate and mitochondrial pyruvate consumption revealed significant effects even at nanomolar NO concentrations. We conclude that NO can modulate astrocytic energy metabolism in the short term, reversibly, and at concentrations known to be released by endothelial cells under physiological conditions. These findings suggest that NO modulates the size of the astrocytic lactate reservoir involved in neuronal fueling and signaling.In brain tissue and retina, NO contributes to both vasodilation and vasoconstriction (1, 2). The vasoactive effects of NO are mediated by the enzymes guanylate cyclase, cytochrome P450 epoxygenase, and -hydroxylase, which sense different NO concentrations. Guanylate cyclase is stimulated in the picomolar to low nanomolar range, whereas cytochrome P450 enzymes are inhibited at tens to hundreds of nanomolar NO (1, 3). However, there is more to NO than vasodilation. Endothelial cells express both endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) 3 and inducible NO synthase (iNOS) (4) resulting in NO production strong enough to sustain up to 70 nM extracellular NO in response to shear stress (5), to reach cells millimeters away in bicameral cultures (6), or to permeate across layers of astrocytes and myelin toward axons in vivo (7). A fourth well characterized molecular target of NO is mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase (EC 1.9.3.1), whose sensitivity to NO is similar to that of cytochrome P450 (8, 9). As inhibition of cytochrome oxidase reduces local oxygen consumption, endothelial NO has been proposed to extend the effective zone of oxygenation away from the vessel (10). A role for NO-dependent mitochondrial inhibition in brain tissue was suggested upon the observation that NO inhibits astrocytic respiration, resulting in stimulated glycolysis and lactate production (11, 12). Conceivably, inhibition of cytochrome oxidase may not only play a tonic distributive role but may also participate in activity-dependent neurometabolic coupling (13). However, there are aspects that need further exploring, notably the speed and potency of the metabolic effects in the face of actual NO concentrations found under...