Detachment Stress Mediated Bioenergetic Switch of Malignant Melanoma Cells Into Anti-Warburg Phenotype

One of the biological features of cancer cells was their aerobic glycolysis by extensive glucose fermentation to harvest energy, so called Warburg effect. Melanoma is one of the most aggressive human cancers with poor prognosis and high mortality for its high metastatic ability. During the metastatic process, the metastatic tumor cells should survive under detachment stress. However, whether the detachment stress could affect the tumor phenotype was worthy to investigate. We had established human melanoma A375 cells under detachment stress, which mimicked circulating melanoma. It was shown the detachment stress altered melanoma cell activities, malignancy, and drug sensitivity. In this study, we found that adherent melanoma cells were more sensitive to glucose depletion. However, detachment stress reduced lactate secretion owing to the reduced MCT4 and GLUT1 expressions, the altered glycolytic and respiratory capacities, and the increased superoxide production. Detachment stress also increase the sensitivity of melanoma cells toward blockade of electron transport chains. Investigation of the change in glucose metabolism of melanoma cells under detachment stress would be critical to provide novel molecular mechanism to develop potential therapeutics