Poster Presentation & Flash Talk Presentation 29th Lorne Cancer Conference 2017

Lipid elongation: an unexplored target in prostate cancer (#36)

Margaret Centenera 1 , Jelle Machiels 2 , Zeyad Nassar 1 , Samuel Polacek 1 3 , Katarzyna Bloch 2 , Wayne Tilley 3 , Luke Selth 3 , Johannes Swinnen 2 , Lisa Butler 1
  1. University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  2. Laboratory of Lipid Metabolism and Cancer, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
  3. Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratories, Discipline of Medicine, University of Adelaide, Hanson Institute, Adelaide, South Australia

Dysregulated lipid metabolism is one of the hallmarks of cancer, particularly for prostate cancer (PCa). Androgen signalling is a major driver of both PCa growth and lipid metabolism in PCa cells, however the precise effects of androgens on cellular lipid composition and the molecular pathways by which androgens regulate lipid metabolism in PCa cells are yet to be elucidated. In this study we investigated the effect of androgens on the lipid composition of PCa cell membranes and the enzymes involved in lipid metabolism, and determine the functional roles of these enzymes in tumour cell behaviour.  PCa cell lines (AR positive and negative) were cultured in the absence or presence of androgens or the anti-androgen enzalutamide, and changes in intact phospholipid species were assessed by ESI-MS/MS-based lipidomics. This analysis revealed a complexity of changes in phospholipid profiles in response to androgen treatment. Strikingly, elongation of the fatty acyl chains was consistently observed for multiple phospholipid classes in response to the androgens mibolerone or 5α-dihydotestosterone, whereas inhibition of elongation was observed in the presence of enzalutamide. Transcriptional analysis of critical lipid metabolism pathways revealed that the enzymes that catalyse lipid elongation (ELOVLs) were markedly induced by androgens in multiple cell lines, and depletion of these enzymes, either alone or in combination, reversed the androgen-induced fatty acyl elongation phenotype. The androgenic regulation of ELOVL enzymes was confirmed in clinical PCa cohorts and in primary tumours cultured as explants. Moreover, depletion of ELOVL expression in LNCaP PCa cells significantly suppressed cell growth, migration and invasion.  In conclusion, elongation of phospholipid fatty acyl chains is an androgen-regulated process primarily mediated by ELOVL enzymes. The impact of these enzymes on the lipid profile of PCa cell membranes and cell viability, invasion and migration suggests that they may represent promising new therapeutic targets.