Search PubMedSearch

Biomedical subjects

Matthew G Vander Heiden

Publications and source records attributed to Matthew G Vander Heiden.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: The Vision of Heracles.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains among the deadliest malignancies, as tumors evolve faster than therapies. Resistance is ecological, not merely KRAS driven, involving overlooked players like high-grade pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias (PanINs), peripancreatic fat, stromal mechanics, myeloid-neural circuits, metabolic rewiring, and systemic host responses. We propose precision interception targeting PanIN/intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) biology, spatial-functional-proteogenomic classification beyond transcriptomics, the Heracles Protocol (measure, prime, strike, and adapt), and integrated technologies from AI pathology to exosomal delivery and CRISPR-based synergy mapping, together making PDAC more tractable.

Humans

Nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase directly couples redox homeostasis to proline biosynthesis in human glioma.

Cancer cell proliferation requires a precise balance between biomass production and nutrient catabolism. The pyridine nucleotide cofactors nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide NAD(H) and NAD phosphate NADP(H) are central to this process, but their compartment-specific regulation is incompletely understood. Using in vivo isotope-labeled metabolite tracing in an orthotopic xenograft model, we find that human gliomas extensively synthesize proline, an amino acid previously associated with hypoxia tolerance. In glioma cells, we identify a hypoxia-enhanced proliferative sensitivity to environmental proline dependent on NADH to NADPH transhydrogenation from a spatially compartmentalized mitochondrial pool by the enzyme nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase (NNT). We demonstrate NNT-dependent generation of mitochondrial NADPH is important for proline accumulation, maintenance of antioxidant systems, and reductive metabolism in hypoxic glioma cells in vitro and tumor progression in vivo. Collectively, these results highlight proline accumulation as a marker of mitochondrial NAD(P)(H) homeostasis and NNT as a specific metabolic dependency in human glioma.

NNT