2. Academic Validation
  3. Pharmacologically inhibiting phosphoglycerate kinase 1 for glioma with NG52

Pharmacologically inhibiting phosphoglycerate kinase 1 for glioma with NG52

  • Acta Pharmacol Sin. 2021 Apr;42(4):633-640. doi: 10.1038/s41401-020-0465-8.
Wen-Liang Wang  # 1 2,  Zong-Ru Jiang  # 1 2,  Chen Hu 1,  Cheng Chen 1 2,  Zhen-Quan Hu 1,  Ao-Li Wang 1,  Li Wang 1 2,  Jing Liu 3,  Wen-Chao Wang 4 5,  Qing-Song Liu 6 7 8 9
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China.
  • 2 University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230036, China.
  • 3 High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China. jingliu@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • 4 High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China. wwcbox@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • 5 Precision Medicine Research Laboratory of Anhui Province, Hefei, 230088, China. wwcbox@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • 6 High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field and Ion Beam Physical Biology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China. qsliulab97@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • 7 University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230036, China. qsliulab97@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • 8 Precision Medicine Research Laboratory of Anhui Province, Hefei, 230088, China. qsliulab97@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • 9 Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials, Ministry of Education, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China. qsliulab97@hmfl.ac.cn.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 32737469 DOI: 10.1038/s41401-020-0465-8
Abstract

Inhibition of glycolysis process has been an attractive approach for Cancer treatment due to the evidence that tumor cells are more dependent on glycolysis rather than Oxidative Phosphorylation pathway. Preliminary evidence shows that inhibition of phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) kinase activity would reverse the Warburg effect and make tumor cells lose the metabolic advantage for fueling the proliferation through restoration of the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) activity and subsequently promotion of pyruvic acid to enter the Krebs cycle in glioma. However, due to the lack of small molecule inhibitors of PGK1 kinase activity to treat glioma, whether PGK1 could be a therapeutic target of glioma has not been pharmacologically verified yet. In this study we developed a high-throughput screening and discovered that NG52, previously known as a yeast cell cycle-regulating kinase inhibitor, could inhibit the kinase activity of PGK1 (the IC50 = 2.5 ± 0.2 μM). We showed that NG52 dose-dependently inhibited the proliferation of glioma U87 and U251 cell lines with IC50 values of 7.8 ± 1.1 and 5.2 ± 0.2 μM, respectively, meanwhile it potently inhibited the proliferation of primary glioma cells. We further revealed that NG52 (12.5-50 μM) effectively inhibited the phosphorylation of PDHK1 at Thr338 site and the phosphorylation of PDH at Ser293 site in U87 and U251 cells, resulting in more pyruvic acid entering the Krebs cycle with increased production of ATP and ROS. Therefore, NG52 could reverse the Warburg effect by inhibiting PGK1 kinase activity, and switched cellular glucose metabolism from anaerobic mode to aerobic mode. In nude mice bearing patient-derived glioma xenograft, oral administration of NG52 (50, 100, 150 mg· kg-1·d-1, for 13 days) dose-dependently suppressed the growth of glioma xenograft. Together, our results demonstrate that targeting PGK1 kinase activity might be a potential strategy for glioma treatment.

Keywords

PGK1; NG52; kinase inhibitor; Warburg effect; glioma.

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