Mitochondrial respiratory gene expression is suppressed in many cancers

The fundamental metabolic decision of a cell, the balance between respiration and fermentation, rests in part on expression of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and coordination with expression of the nuclear genome (nuDNA). Previously we described mtDNA copy number depletion across many solid tumor...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published ineLife Vol. 6
Main Authors Reznik, Ed, Wang, Qingguo, La, Konnor, Schultz, Nikolaus, Sander, Chris
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 18.01.2017
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subjects
Cancer
Cancer Biology
Cell Respiration
Computational and Systems Biology
Copy number
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics
Electron transport
Estimates
Fermentation
Gene Dosage
Gene Expression
Gene Expression Profiling
Genetic aspects
Genomes
Health aspects
Humans
Metabolism
Metastasis
Mitochondria
Mitochondria - genetics
Mitochondria - metabolism
Mitochondrial DNA
mtDNA
mtRNA
Neoplasms - genetics
Neoplasms - pathology
Proteins
Research Advance
Respiration
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
Solid tumors
Tumors
computational biology
systems biology
mtDNA
mitochondria
cancer
cancer biology
metabolism
respiration
mtRNA
human
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The fundamental metabolic decision of a cell, the balance between respiration and fermentation, rests in part on expression of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and coordination with expression of the nuclear genome (nuDNA). Previously we described mtDNA copy number depletion across many solid tumor types (Reznik et al., 2016). Here, we use orthogonal RNA-sequencing data to quantify mtDNA expression (mtRNA), and report analogously lower expression of mtRNA in tumors (relative to normal tissue) across a majority of cancer types. Several cancers exhibit a trio of mutually consistent evidence suggesting a drop in respiratory activity: depletion of mtDNA copy number, decreases in mtRNA levels, and decreases in expression of nuDNA-encoded respiratory proteins. Intriguingly, a minority of cancer types exhibit a drop in mtDNA expression but an increase in nuDNA expression of respiratory proteins, with unknown implications for respiratory activity. Our results indicate suppression of respiratory gene expression across many cancer types.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
Ed Reznik and Qingguo Wang are joint first authors.
College of Computing and Technology, Lipscomb University, Nashville, United States.
Nikolaus Schultz and Chris Sander are joint senior authors.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/elife.21592