The fatty acid receptor CD36 promotes HCC progression through activating Src/PI3K/AKT axis-dependent aerobic glycolysis.

Metabolic reprogramming is a new hallmark of cancer but it remains poorly defined in hepatocellular carcinogenesis (HCC). The fatty acid receptor CD36 is associated with both lipid and glucose metabolism in the liver. However, the role of CD36 in metabolic reprogramming in the progression of HCC still remains to be elucidated. In the present study, we found that CD36 is highly expressed in human HCC as compared with non-tumor hepatic tissue. CD36 overexpression promoted the proliferation, migration, invasion, and in vivo tumor growth of HCC cells, whereas silencing CD36 had the opposite effects. By analysis of cell metabolic phenotype, CD36 expression showed a positive association with extracellular acidification rate, a measure of glycolysis, instead of oxygen consumption rate. Further experiments verified that overexpression of CD36 resulted in increased glycolysis flux and lactic acid production. Mechanistically, CD36 induced mTOR-mediated oncogenic glycolysis via activation of Src/PI3K/AKT signaling axis. Pretreatment of HCC cells with PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibitors largely blocked the tumor-promoting effect of CD36. Our findings suggest that CD36 exerts a stimulatory effect on HCC growth and metastasis, through mediating aerobic glycolysis by the Src/PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.