In tumors, MCT1 regulates the activity of signaling pathways and controls the exchange of monocarboxylates in aerobic glycolysis to affect tumor metabolism, proliferation and invasion.
Upon depletion of SLC16A1, we observed a decrease of cellular proliferation and invasion in both NB and CMM cell lines, suggesting its role as oncogene.
In addition, MCT-1 elevated the soluble IL-6 receptor levels, and thus, IL-6R antibodies antagonized the effect of MCT-1 on promoting M2-like polarization and cancer cell invasion.
These findings collectively suggested that MCT1 might act as a new regulator to improve invasion and migration of NPC cells and be correlated with activating the PI3K/Akt pathway.
After the MCT1-specific inhibitor removed 'tumor-stromal' metabolic coupling, the migration and invasion abilities of the pancreatic cancer cells were decreased.
The siRNA-mediated knockdown of GLUT-1 or MCT-1 significantly suppressed tumor cell proliferation, and MCT-1 silencing inhibited invasion and induced apoptosis.
There was also a decrease of MCT1 expression in the invasion and metastasis potential of pancreatic cancer cells, as well as increased chemosensitivity to gemcitabine in Panc-1 cells.
Cellular invasion assays correlate with gene expression and zymography experiments identifying both Ox and MCT-1 as able to inhibit invasion of metastatic cancer cell lines through matrigel at nanomolar concentrations, with MCT-1 more effective than Ox in 2 of the 3 cancer cell lines assessed.