Bioenergetic profiling of
tumors is a new challenge of
cancer research and medicine as
therapies are currently being developed. Meanwhile, methodological means must be proposed to gather information on
tumor metabolism in order to adapt these potential
therapies to the bioenergetic specificities of
tumors. Studies performed on
tumors and
cancer cell lines have shown that
cancer cells bioenergetics is highly variable. This profile changes with microenvironmental conditions (eg. substrate availability), the oncogenes activated (and the
tumor suppressors inactivated) and the interaction with the stroma (i.e. reverse Warburg effect). Here, we assessed the power of metabolic footprinting (MFP) to unravel the bioenergetics and associated anabolic changes induced by three oncogenes, c-Myc, KLF4 and Oct1. The MFP approach provides a quantitative analysis of the metabolites secreted and consumed by
cancer cells. We used ultra performance liquid chromatography for quantifying the
amino acid uptake and secretion. To investigate the potential oncogene-mediated alterations in mitochondrial metabolism, we measured oxygen consumption rate and
ATP production as well as the
glucose uptake and
lactate release. Our findings show that c-Myc deficiency initiates the Warburg effect along with a reduction of mitochondrial respiration. KLF4 deficiency also stimulated glycolysis, albeit without cellular respiration impairment. In contrast, Oct1 deficiency reduced glycolysis and enhanced oxidative phosphorylation efficiency. MFP revealed that c-Myc, KLF4 and Oct1 altered
amino acid metabolism with specific patterns. We identified
isoleucine, α-aminoadipic
acid and
GABA (γ-aminoisobutyric
acid) as
biomarkers related. Our findings establish the impact of Oct1, KLF4 and c-Myc on
cancer bioenergetics and evidence a link between oncosecretomics and cellular bioenergetics profile.