Glutamine metabolism controls amphiregulin-facilitated chemoresistance to cisplatin in human chondrosarcoma
Chondrosarcoma is the second most common type of bone cancer. At present, the most effective clinical course of action is surgical resection. Cisplatin is the chemotherapeutic medication most widely used for the treatment of chondrosarcoma; however, its effectiveness is severely hampered by drug resistance. In the current study, we compared cisplatin-resistant chondrosarcoma SW1353 cells with their parental cells via RNA sequencing. Our analysis revealed that glutamine metabolism is highly activated in resistant cells but glucose metabolism is not. Amphiregulin (AR), a ligand of the epidermal growth factor receptor, enhances glutamine metabolism and supports cisplatin resistance in human chondrosarcoma by promoting NADPH production and inhibiting ROS accumulation. The MEK, ERK, and NrF2 signaling pathways were shown to regulate AR-mediated SLC1A5 and GLS expression as well as glutamine metabolism in cisplatin-resistant chondrosarcoma. The knockdown of AR expression in cisplatin-resistant chondrosarcoma cells was shown to reduce the expression of SLC1A5 and GLS in vivo. These results indicate that AR and glutamine metabolism are worth pursuing as therapeutic targets in dealing with cisplatin-resistant human chondrosarcoma. Overall design: To identify the metabolic processes underlying chondrosarcoma cisplatin resistance. We established the chondrosarcoma cisplatin resistance cell line and performed RNA seq.