Sucrose Nonfermenting-Related Kinase Expression Is Related to a Metabolic Switch in Ovarian Cancer Cells That Results in Increased Fatty Acid Oxidation

Abstract

Ovarian cancer frequently metastasizes to the omentum, which is primarily comprised of adipocytes. Our previous study found that sucrose nonfermenting-related kinase (SNRK) expression is lower in advanced-stage compared with early-stage ovarian cancer tissue. In this study, SNRK knockdown was performed in ovarian cancer cell lines using lentiviral transduction and resulted in decreased cell proliferation, increased invasion, and a switch in metabolism to increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Our data suggest that SNRK works as a metabolic checkpoint that allows for oxidative phosphorylation and prevents FAO during a time of rapid tumor growth.

Keywords:

• Ovarian cancer
• metastasis
• omentum
• SNRK
• metabolism
• adipocytes
• mitochondria

Acknowledgments

Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

This project was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant Number 8KL2TR000056 (EAB), the Wisconsin Ovarian Cancer Alliance (EAB), the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center Pilot grant (EAB, SC), NSF grant EEC-1648035 (SPP), and NSF grant DGE-1256259 (SAA).