Leukemic blasts program bone marrow adipocytes to generate a protumoral microenvironment

Manar S Shafat, Thomas Oellerich, Sebastian Mohr, Stephen D Robinson, Dylan R Edwards, Christopher R Marlein, Rachel E Piddock, Matthew Fenech, Lyubov Zaitseva, Amina Abdul-Aziz, Jeremy Turner, Johnathan A Watkins, Matthew Lawes, Kristian M Bowles, Stuart A Rushworth

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

243 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite currently available therapies, most patients diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) die of their disease. Tumor-host interactions are critical for the survival and proliferation of cancer cells; accordingly, we hypothesize that specific targeting of the tumor microenvironment may constitute an alternative or additional strategy to conventional tumor-directed chemotherapy. Because adipocytes have been shown to promote breast and prostate cancer proliferation, and because the bone marrow adipose tissue accounts for up to 70% of bone marrow volume in adult humans, we examined the adipocyte-leukemia cell interactions to determine if they are essential for the growth and survival of AML. Using in vivo and in vitro models of AML, we show that bone marrow adipocytes from the tumor microenvironment support the survival and proliferation of malignant cells from patients with AML. We show that AML blasts alter metabolic processes in adipocytes to induce phosphorylation of hormone-sensitive lipase and consequently activate lipolysis, which then enables the transfer of fatty acids from adipocytes to AML blasts. In addition, we report that fatty acid binding protein-4 (FABP4) messenger RNA is upregulated in adipocytes and AML when in coculture. FABP4 inhibition using FABP4 short hairpin RNA knockdown or a small molecule inhibitor prevents AML proliferation on adipocytes. Moreover, knockdown of FABP4 increases survival in Hoxa9/Meis1-driven AML model. Finally, knockdown of carnitine palmitoyltransferase IA in an AML patient-derived xenograft model improves survival. Here, we report the first description of AML programming bone marrow adipocytes to generate a protumoral microenvironment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1320-1332
Number of pages13
JournalBlood
Volume129
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 9 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Adipocytes/metabolism
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Animals
  • Blotting, Western
  • Bone Marrow Cells/metabolism
  • Coculture Techniques
  • Fatty Acid-Binding Proteins/metabolism
  • Female
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Heterografts
  • Humans
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute/metabolism
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Middle Aged
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Tumor Microenvironment/physiology

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