Gene profiling of human adult and pediatric liver cancer cells. Homo sapiens

In an effort to comprehend some of the molecular differences between two cancers that originate in the same tissue, adult HCC and pediatric HB, we profiled four HCC and four HB cell lines using RNA sequencing. We identified an enhanced sugar uptake and usage in HB tumors compared to adult HCC, and two different metabolic subtypes of HB. We identified an enhanced sugar uptake and usage in HB tumors compared to adult HCC, and two different metabolic subtypes of HB. In particular, we showed that embryonal HB cell lines largely rely on glycolysis and express higher level of GLUT3, together with HK1, PFKP and LDHB coding for enzyme of glycolysis. On the contrary, fetal tumors express genes involved in gluconeogenesis, and as notable exception they express HK2, which is often over-expressed in adult solid tumors. Importantly, we found that the different utilization of HK isoforms renders the two HB subtypes sensitive to specific glycolysis inhibitors. Overall design: HCC and HB gene profiles were generated by deep sequencing, in duplicates, using Illumina HiSeq 2500.