Metabolic reprogramming of cancer-associated fibroblasts in pancreatic cancer contributes to the intratumor heterogeneity of PET-CT

Intratumor heterogeneity of positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is reflected by variable 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake. Increasing evidence has shown that neoplastic and non-neoplastic components can affect the total 18F-FDG uptake in tumors. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) is considered as the main non-neoplastic components in tumor microenvironment (TME) of pancreatic cancer. Our study aims to explore the impact of metabolic changes in CAFs on heterogeneity of PET-CT. A total of 126 patients with pancreatic cancer underwent PET-CT and endoscopic ultrasound elastography (EUS-EG) before treatment. High maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) from the PET-CT was positively correlated with the EUS-derived strain ratio (SR) and indicated poor prognosis of patients. In addition, single-cell RNA analysis showed that CAV1 affected glycolytic activity and correlated with gly-colytic enzyme expression in fibroblasts in pancreatic cancer. We also observed the negative correlation between CAV1 and glycolytic enzyme expression in the tumor stroma by using immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay in the SUVmax-high and SUVmax-low groups of pancreatic cancer patients. Additionally, CAFs with high glycolytic activity contributed to pancreatic cancer cell migration, and blocking CAF glycolysis reversed this process, suggesting that glycolytic CAFs promote malignant biological behavior in pancreatic cancer. In summary, our research demonstrated that the metabolic reprogramming of CAFs affects total 18F-FDG uptake in tumors. Thus, an increase in glycolytic CAFs with decreased CAV1 expression promotes tumor progression, and high SUVmax may be a marker for therapy targeting the neoplastic stroma. Further studies should clarify the underlying mechanisms.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Research Network of Computational and Structural Biotechnology. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study aims to explore the impact of metabolic changes in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) on the heterogeneity of PET-CT. The results showed that CAFs with high glycolytic activity contribute to malignant behavior in pancreatic cancer, and high SUVmax may serve as a marker for therapy targeting the tumor stroma.