• M Victoria Ruiz-Pérez, Miguel Ángel Medina, José Luis Urdiales, Tuomo A Keinänen, and Francisca Sánchez-Jiménez.
• From the Universidad de Málaga, Andalucía Tech, Departamento de Biología Molecular y Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias, and IBIMA (Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga), 29071 Málaga, Spain, mariaviruiz@uma.es.
• J. Biol. Chem. 2015 Mar 6; 290 (10): 6106-19.

AbstractPolyamines are essential for cell proliferation, and their levels are elevated in many human tumors. The oncogene n-myc is known to potentiate polyamine metabolism. Neuroblastoma, the most frequent extracranial solid tumor in children, harbors the amplification of n-myc oncogene in 25% of the cases, and it is associated with treatment failure and poor prognosis. We evaluated several metabolic features of the human neuroblastoma cell lines Kelly, IMR-32, and SK-N-SH. We further investigated the effects of glycolysis impairment in polyamine metabolism in these cell lines. A previously unknown linkage between glycolysis impairment and polyamine reduction is unveiled. We show that glycolysis inhibition is able to trigger signaling events leading to the reduction of N-Myc protein levels and a subsequent decrease of both ornithine decarboxylase expression and polyamine levels, accompanied by cell cycle blockade preceding cell death. New anti-tumor strategies could take advantage of the direct relationship between glucose deprivation and polyamine metabolism impairment, leading to cell death, and its apparent dependence on n-myc. Combined therapies targeting glucose metabolism and polyamine synthesis could be effective in the treatment of n-myc-expressing tumors.© 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

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