Tariq Shah1, Balaji Krishnamachary2,
Flonne Wildes2, Zaver M. Bhujwalla1
1JHU ICMIC Program, Russell H Morgan
Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine , Baltimore, MD, United States; 2JHU ICMIC Program,
Russell H Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Johns
Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States
The
hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) recognizes and binds to consensus sequences
called hypoxia response elements on the promoter regions of several genes,
increasing their transcription. As a
result hypoxia plays an important role in the cancer phenotype. Here we silenced HIF-1 alpha expression in
invasive MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells and characterized metabolic changes
using a magnetic resonance compatible cell perfusion system with cells
maintained under controlled pH, temperature, and oxygenation conditions. HIF-1 alpha silenced cells acquired a less
aggressive metabolic phenotype with reduced choline kinase expression,
together with reduced total choline and phosphocholine, compared to parental
cells.