The Warburg effect in cancer cells has been proposed to involve several mechanisms, including adaptation to hypoxia, oncogenes activation or loss of oncosuppressors and impaired mitochondrial function. In previous papers, it has been shown that K-ras transformed mouse cells are much more sensitive as compared with normal cells to glucose withdrawal (undergoing apoptosis) and present a high glycolytic rate and a strong reduction of mitochondrial complex I. Recent observations suggest that transformed cells have a derangement in the cyclic adenosine monophosphate/cAMP-dependent protein kinase (cAMP/PKA) pathway, which is known to regulate several mitochondrial functions. Herein, the derangement of the cAMP/PKA pathway and its impact on transformation-linked changes of mitochondrial functions is investigated. Exogenous stimulation of PKA activity, achieved by forskolin treatment, protected K-ras-transformed cells from apoptosis induced by glucose deprivation, enhanced complex I activity, intracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels, mitochondrial fusion and decreased intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Several of these effects were almost completely prevented by inhibiting the PKA activity. Short-time treatment with compounds favoring mitochondrial fusion strongly decreased the cellular ROS levels especially in transformed cells. These findings support the notion that glucose shortage-induced apoptosis, specific of K-ras-transformed cells, is associated to a derangement of PKA signaling that leads to mitochondrial complex I decrease, reduction of ATP formation, prevalence of mitochondrial fission over fusion, and thereby opening new approaches for development of anticancer drugs.
DNA replication is a tightly regulated process that initiates from multiple replication origins and leads to the faithful transmission of the genetic material. For proper DNA replication, the chromatin surrounding origins needs to be remodeled. However, remarkably little is known on which epigenetic changes are required to allow the firing of replication origins. Here, we show that the histone demethylase KDM5C/JARID1C is required for proper DNA replication at early origins. JARID1C dictates the assembly of the pre-initiation complex, driving the binding to chromatin of the pre-initiation proteins CDC45 and PCNA, through the demethylation of the histone mark H3K4me3. Fork activation and histone H4 acetylation, additional early events involved in DNA replication, are not affected by JARID1C downregulation. All together, these data point to a prominent role for JARID1C in a specific phase of DNA replication in mammalian cells, through its demethylase activity on H3K4me3.
The generation of new ribosomes is a coordinated process essential to sustain cell growth. As such, it is tightly regulated according to cell needs. As cancer cells require intense protein translation to ensure their enhanced growth rate, they exploit various mechanisms to boost ribosome biogenesis. In this review, we will summarize how oncogenes and tumor suppressors modulate the biosynthesis of the RNA component of ribosomes, starting from the description of well-characterized pathways that converge on ribosomal RNA transcription while including novel insights that reveal unexpected regulatory networks hacked by cancer cells to unleash ribosome production.
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