Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter to the Editor
  • Published:

Low doses of 2-deoxy-glucose sensitize acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells to glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis

Leukemia volume 23, pages 2167–2170 (2009)Cite this article

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are an essential component of most chemotherapy protocols for lymphoid malignancies, particularly childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).1, 2 Nevertheless, adverse side effects of GCs call for improved therapy protocols.

GCs decrease the activity of glycolytic enzymes3 and upregulate the expression of the glycolytic regulator, 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase in vitro and in vivo.4 This led us to investigate whether co-administration of 2-deoxy-glucose (2-DG), an inhibitor of glycolysis, systemic application of which up to a blood concentration of approximately 3 mM had caused a transient hyperglycemia only,5 might potentiate the apoptotic effect of GC.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3

References

  1. Pui CH, Evans WE . Treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. N Engl J Med 2006; 354: 166–178.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Dordelmann M, Reiter A, Borkhardt A, Ludwig WD, Gotz N, Viehmann S et al. Prednisone response is the strongest predictor of treatment outcome in infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood 1999; 94: 1209–1217.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Holleman A, Cheok MH, den Boer ML, Yang W, Veerman AJ, Kazemier KM et al. Gene-expression patterns in drug-resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells and response to treatment. N Engl J Med 2004; 351: 533–542.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Schmidt S, Rainer J, Riml S, Ploner C, Jesacher S, Achmuller C et al. Identification of glucocorticoid-response genes in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood 2006; 107: 2061–2069.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Landau BR, Laszlo J, Stengle J, Burk D . Certain metabolic and pharmacologic effects in cancer patients given infusions of 2-deoxy-D-glucose. J Natl Cancer Inst 1958; 21: 485–494.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Hulleman E, Kazemier KM, Holleman A, Vanderweele DJ, Rudin CM, Broekhuis MJ et al. Inhibition of glycolysis modulates prednisolone resistance in acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells. Blood 2009; 113: 2014–2021.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Mathupala SP, Ko YH, Pedersen PL . Hexokinase II: cancer's double-edged sword acting as both facilitator and gatekeeper of malignancy when bound to mitochondria. Oncogene 2006; 25: 4777–4786.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Smets LA, van den BJ, Acton D, Top B, Van Rooij H, Verwijs-Janssen M . BCL-2 expression and mitochondrial activity in leukemic cells with different sensitivity to glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis. Blood 1994; 84: 1613–1619.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Xu RH, Pelicano H, Zhang H, Giles FJ, Keating MJ, Huang P . Synergistic effect of targeting mTOR by rapamycin and depleting ATP by inhibition of glycolysis in lymphoma and leukemia cells. Leukemia 2005; 19: 2153–2158.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. K Eberhart and K Renner: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Functional Genomics, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    K Eberhart, K Renner, I Ritter & P J Oefner

  2. Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute, Innsbruck, Austria

    K Eberhart & R Kofler

  3. Department of Internal Medi,

    K Singer

  4. cine 5 - Hematology/Oncology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany

    K Singer

  5. Department of Internal Medicine I, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    C Hellerbrand

  6. Division of Molecular Pathophysiology, Biocenter, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    R Kofler

  7. Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    M Kastenberger & M Kreutz

Authors
  1. K Eberhart
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. K Renner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. I Ritter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. M Kastenberger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. K Singer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. C Hellerbrand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. M Kreutz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. R Kofler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. P J Oefner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K Renner.

Additional information

Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Leukemia website (http://www.nature.com/leu)

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Eberhart, K., Renner, K., Ritter, I. et al. Low doses of 2-deoxy-glucose sensitize acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells to glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis. Leukemia 23, 2167–2170 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2009.154

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2009.154

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links