Increased lactate dehydrogenase activity is dispensable in squamous carcinoma cells of origin

We sought to determine whether Ldh activity in SCC tumors is a marker of the cell type from which these cells arise, or a key metabolic activity important for tumor initiation or progression. Here we show that genetic abrogation of Ldh enzyme activity in HFSC-mediated tumorigenesis had no effect on tumor number, time to tumor formation, tumor proliferation, epithelial to mesenchymal transition in tumors, gene expression in tumors, tumor pathology, or the immune response to tumors. Examination of mRNA profile of five LDHA knockout mice vs five wild type (WT) mice using Illumina HiSeq2500.