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Metabolism of Neoplastic Tissue

XII. Effects of Glucose Concentration on Respiration and Glycolysis of Ascites Tumor Cells^*

Leah Bloch-Frankenthal and Sidney Weinhouse

(The Lankenau Hospital Research Institute and The Institute for Cancer Research, Philadelphia, Pa.)

The effect of variations in glucose concentration on respiration and glycolysis in cells of the Ehrlich ascites tumor was investigated, with the use of glucose uniformly labeled with C¹⁴. Over a 4-hour incubation period, oxygen uptake and glucose oxidation were linear despite a rapid glycolysis, resulting in replacement of the glucose by lactic acid. Short-term kinetic studies indicated that initial rates of glucose and lactic acid oxidation were not highly concentration-dependent above 0.001 M, and glycolysis was maximal at approximately 10^-4 M glucose. At all concentrations tested, glycolysis was much more rapid than glucose or lactate oxidation. The inhibition of respiration at high glucose concentrations (Crabtree Effect) was consistently observed and was exerted on both glucose and on endogenous substrates. It was suggested that the unusually high glycolysis of ascites cells, in comparison with solid tumor slices, may be owing to the easy accessibility of glucose to these freely suspended single cells, resulting in a highly efficient glycolysis, not limited by the intracellular availability of glucose.

^* Aided by grants from the American Cancer Society, recommended by the Committee on Growth of the National Research Council, and the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. We are grateful to Grace Medes and Alice Thomas for assistance in some of the experiments.

Fellow of the Women's Auxiliaries of the Institutes, on leave from the Cancer Research Laboratories, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel.

Received 6/21/57.