Metabolic profiling of breast cancer: Differences in central metabolism between subtypes of breast cancer cell lines.

Although the concept of aerobic glycolysis in cancer was already reported in the 1930s by Otto Warburg, the understanding of metabolic pathways remains challenging especially due to the heterogeneity of cancer. In consideration of four different time points (1, 2, 4, and 7 days of incubation), GC-MS profiling of metabolites was performed on cell extracts and supernatants of breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231, -453, BT-474) with different sub classification and the breast epithelial cell line MCF-10A. To the exclusion of trypsinization, direct methanolic extraction, cell scraping and cell disruption was executed to obtain central metabolites. Major differences in biochemical pathways have been observed in the breast cancer cell lines compared to the breast epithelial cell line, as well as between the breast cancer cell lines themselves. Characteristics of breast cancer subtypes could be correlated to their individual metabolic profiles. PLS-DA revealed the discrimination of breast cancer cell lines from MCF-10A based on elevated amino acid levels. The observed metabolic signatures have great potential as biomarker for breast cancer as well as an improved understanding of subtype specific phenomenons of breast cancer.