Inhibition of hepatic lipogenesis enhances liver tumorigenesis by increasing antioxidant defence and promoting cell survival.

The metabolic pathway of de novo lipogenesis is frequently upregulated in human liver tumours, and its upregulation is associated with poor prognosis. Blocking lipogenesis in cultured liver cancer cells is sufficient to decrease cell viability; however, it is not known whether blocking lipogenesis in vivo can prevent liver tumorigenesis. Herein, we inhibit hepatic lipogenesis in mice by liver-specific knockout of acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) genes and treat the mice with the hepatocellular carcinogen diethylnitrosamine (DEN). Unexpectedly, mice lacking hepatic lipogenesis have a twofold increase in tumour incidence and multiplicity compared to controls. Metabolomics analysis of ACC-deficient liver identifies a marked increase in antioxidants including NADPH and reduced glutathione. Importantly, supplementing primary wild-type hepatocytes with glutathione precursors improves cell survival following DEN treatment to a level indistinguishable from ACC-deficient primary hepatocytes. This study shows that lipogenesis is dispensable for liver tumorigenesis in mice treated with DEN, and identifies an important role for ACC enzymes in redox regulation and cell survival.

Dietary sugar intake increases liver tumor incidence in female mice.

Overnutrition can promote liver cancer in mice and humans that have liver damage caused by alcohol, viruses, or carcinogens. However, the mechanism linking diet to increased liver tumorigenesis remains unclear in the context of whether tumorigenesis is secondary to obesity, or whether nutrients like sugar or fat drive tumorigenesis independent of obesity. In male mice, liver tumor burden was recently found to correlate with sugar intake, independent of dietary fat intake and obesity. However, females are less susceptible to developing liver cancer than males, and it remains unclear how nutrition affects tumorigenesis in females. Herein, female mice were exposed to the liver carcinogen diethylnitrosamine (DEN) and fed diets with well-defined sugar and fat content. Mice fed diets with high sugar content had the greatest liver tumor incidence while dietary fat intake was not associated with tumorigenesis. Diet-induced postprandial hyperglycemia and fasting hyperinsulinemia significantly correlated with tumor incidence, while tumor incidence was not associated with obesity and obesity-related disorders including liver steatosis, glucose intolerance, or elevated serum levels of estrogen, ALT, and lipids. These results simplify the pathophysiology of diet-induced liver tumorigenesis by focusing attention on the role of sugar metabolism and reducing emphasis on the complex milieu associated with obesity.

Dietary effects on liver tumor burden in mice treated with the hepatocellular carcinogen diethylnitrosamine.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Mice exposed to the hepatocellular carcinogen diethylnitrosamine at 2 weeks of age have a high risk of developing primary liver tumors later in life. Previous studies have demonstrated that diethylnitrosamine-treated mice have increased tumor burden when fed an obesigenic "Western" diet rich in lard fat and sugar. However, the role of dietary fats vs. sugars in the promotion of liver cancer is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to determine how altering dietary fats vs. sugars affects tumor burden in the diethylnitrosamine model. METHODS: C57BL/6N mice were treated with diethylnitrosamine at 2 weeks of age and, from 6 to 32 weeks of age, fed one of five diets that differed in fat and sugar content, including normal chow, ketogenic, and Western diets. RESULTS: Mice fed sugar-rich diets had the greatest tumor burden irrespective of dietary fat content. In contrast, mice fed a high-fat low-sugar diet had the least tumor burden despite obesity and glucose intolerance. When evaluated as independent variables, tumor burden was positively correlated with hepatic fat accumulation, postprandial insulin, and liver IL-6, and inversely correlated with serum adiponectin. In contrast, tumor burden did not correlate with adiposity, fasting insulin, or glucose intolerance. Furthermore, mice fed high sugar diets had lower liver expression of p21 and cleaved caspase-3 compared to mice fed low sugar diets. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that dietary sugar intake contributes to liver tumor burden independent of excess adiposity or insulin resistance in mice treated with diethylnitrosamine.

Genetic inhibition of hepatic acetyl-CoA carboxylase activity increases liver fat and alters global protein acetylation.

Lipid deposition in the liver is associated with metabolic disorders including fatty liver disease, type II diabetes, and hepatocellular cancer. The enzymes acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 (ACC1) and ACC2 are powerful regulators of hepatic fat storage; therefore, their inhibition is expected to prevent the development of fatty liver. In this study we generated liver-specific ACC1 and ACC2 double knockout (LDKO) mice to determine how the loss of ACC activity affects liver fat metabolism and whole-body physiology. Characterization of LDKO mice revealed unexpected phenotypes of increased hepatic triglyceride and decreased fat oxidation. We also observed that chronic ACC inhibition led to hyper-acetylation of proteins in the extra-mitochondrial space. In sum, these data reveal the existence of a compensatory pathway that protects hepatic fat stores when ACC enzymes are inhibited. Furthermore, we identified an important role for ACC enzymes in the regulation of protein acetylation in the extra-mitochondrial space.

Autophagy is required for exercise training-induced skeletal muscle adaptation and improvement of physical performance.

Pathological and physiological stimuli, including acute exercise, activate autophagy; however, it is unknown whether exercise training alters basal levels of autophagy and whether autophagy is required for skeletal muscle adaptation to training. We observed greater autophagy flux (i.e., a combination of increased LC3-II/LC3-I ratio and LC3-II levels and reduced p62 protein content indicating a higher rate of initiation and resolution of autophagic events), autophagy protein expression (i.e., Atg6/Beclin1, Atg7, and Atg8/LC3) and mitophagy protein Bnip3 expression in tonic, oxidative muscle compared to muscles of either mixed fiber types or of predominant glycolytic fibers in mice. Long-term voluntary running (4 wk) resulted in increased basal autophagy flux and expression of autophagy proteins and Bnip3 in parallel to mitochondrial biogenesis in plantaris muscle with mixed fiber types. Conversely, exercise training promoted autophagy protein expression with no significant increases of autophagy flux and mitochondrial biogenesis in the oxidative soleus muscle. We also observed increased basal autophagy flux and Bnip3 content without increases in autophagy protein expression in the plantaris muscle of sedentary muscle-specific Pgc-1α transgenic mice, a genetic model of augmented mitochondrial biogenesis. These findings reveal that endurance exercise training-induced increases in basal autophagy, including mitophagy, only take place if an enhanced oxidative phenotype is achieved. However, autophagy protein expression is mainly dictated by contractile activity independently of enhancements in oxidative phenotype. Exercise-trained mice heterozygous for the critical autophagy protein Atg6 showed attenuated increases of basal autophagy flux, mitochondrial content, and angiogenesis in skeletal muscle, along with impaired improvement of endurance capacity. These results demonstrate that increased basal autophagy is required for endurance exercise training-induced skeletal muscle adaptation and improvement of physical performance.