Exploiting the sensitivity of different cancer cell lines to glucose, glutamine and cholesterol limitations

Cancer metabolism has become an important research topic to develop new anti-cancer therapies. Cancer cells have an increased nutrient demand, as they are highly proliferative cells. Glucose, glutamine and cholesterol metabolisms are important for cancer progression and tumor growth. Preliminary data which will be basis of our study were performed under the supervision of Dr. Kıvanç BİRSOY in the Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts, USA by myself with a grant from the Turkish Council of Higher Education. In these studies metabolic liabilities of cancer cells due to glucose, glutamine and cholesterol limitations using cell mixing experiment were determined. Cell lines were classified as sensitive, moderate and resistant. In this thesis study, it is aimed to obtain data to shed light on molecular mechanisms that play role in the nutrient sensitivity of cancer cells in our department. For this purpose, publicly available web based data will be used for computational analysis of mutations that our cancer cell lines have. Thus, it is aimed to provide data to our future projects. Our results showed that SS18L1 mutations could play a role in the sensitivity of cancer cells to glucose limitation while, LRP1 mutations could be related to sensitivity to cholesterol depletion. Any related gene mutation was not identified for sensitivity of cell lines to glutamin limitation. The role of LRP1 ve SS18L1 mutations in cancer metabolism should be identified by conducting further experiments. Therefore, our results will lead us for studying the role of mutations in cancer cell metabolim and support us for grant applications.