Effects of Thalidomide and rhGM-CSF on Carbohydrate Metabolism in HL-60 Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia Cell Line

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the in vitro effect of thalidomide and rhGM-CSF on energy metabolism rate in HL-60 cell lines. HL-60 cells were incubated with radiolabelled glucose for 4 hours. Following incubation, radiolabelled CO2 was isolated and collected in specially designed scintillation vials. The other end-products of carbohydrate catabolism collected via anion-exchange chromatography were analyzed using liquid scintillation. Protein and glycogen levels for each group were also determined. The study results indicated that the use of drugs for 2-days had no significant effect when compared with aerobic and anaerobic controls. However, groups treated with the drugs for 5 days showed significant differences. It was obvious that rhGM-CSF caused HL-60 leukemia cells to use aerobic glycolytic pathway for production of energy. When thalidomide and rhGM-CSF combination therapy results were compared with untreated control cells, it was observed that glycogen consumption was decreased by 50.37%, and CO2 production was increased by 94.03%. When compared with those of anaerobic controls, glycogen consumption and CO2 production rates were found to be decreased by 54.01% and increased by 96.59%, respectively. As a consequence, we found that those cell lines treated with combined use of Thalidomide and rhGM-CSF caused HL-60 leukemia cells to predominantly prefer aerobic glycolytic pathways for energy production.