Monitoring Fructose Metabolism in Hypoxic Liver Cancer Cells Using 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Fructolysis is the biochemical pathway which converts fructose, an isomer of glucose, into 2,3-carbon molecules such dihydroxyacetone-P and glyceraldehyde, which are then used as part of glycolytic pathway. The enzyme which initiates fructolysis, fructokinase, is primarily found in the liver and is highly specific to fructose. In this study, we report on fructose metabolism in culture liver cancer cells under normal (20% O2) and hypoxic (2% O2) conditions. Under hypoxic conditions, the canonical response of the cell is to increase glycolytic enzymes and anaerobic production of lactate for its energy needs. For our preliminary experiments, we grew both HuH7 and HEPG2 liver cancer cells under both normoxic and hypoxic incubation conditions with different combinations of 10mM [1-¹³C] glucose and 10mM [1-¹³C] fructose available to the cell. The cell and media extracts were analyzed with 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. These results will be discussed together with other supporting data.