Create physiologically relevant cell culture models with HPLM
Gibco Human Plasma-like Medium (HPLM) is formulated to resemble the natural cellular environment found in the body, mimicking the metabolic profile of human plasma.
Widely used, synthetic cell culture media, including MEM, DMEM, RPMI 1640, and DMEM/F-12 contain glucose, amino acids, vitamins, and salts at concentrations that, in large part, do not reflect those found in human plasma. These media also lack additional plasma components needed to mimic the metabolic profile of human plasma. When studying cancer and other diseases, results with more physiological relevance will enable researchers to help improve their understanding of human function and illness.
The HPLM solution
Gibco HPLM contains the same salt concentrations found in human plasma, as well as the same concentrations of over 60 polar metabolites, such as amino acids, nucleic acids, sugars, and small organic acids. In resembling the natural cellular environment found in the body, HPLM helps provide researchers the ability to study the impact of physiologically relevant cell media on their specific applications.
HPLM supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS) can support cell growth and viability comparable to those of conventional FBS-supplemented basal media formulations. For most cell lines, adaptation is not required to transition from conventional medium to HPLM.
HPLM is beneficial to your cell culture experiments in several ways:
- Physiologically relevant—formulated with more than 60 polar metabolites and salt concentrations that resemble the natural cellular environment found in the body
- Peer reviewed—extensive research publications completed using HPLM formulation
- Easy to use—direct replacement for your current media when supplemented with FBS
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Meet the inventor of HPLM
The inventor of human plasma-like medium is Jason R. Cantor.
As a postdoc at the Whitehead Institute/MIT in Cambridge, Jason set out to create what would become human plasma-like medium (HPLM), a physiologic medium designed to more closely reflect the metabolic composition of human blood, thus permitting the study of cultured cells in biochemical conditions with greater relevance to human physiology.
Cantor reported his development and initial studies using HPLM in early 2017 (Cell). Read his publication here: Physiologic Medium Rewires Cellular Metabolism and Reveals Uric Acid as an Endogenous Inhibitor of UMP Synthase .
We are proud to work with Jason to bring this innovation to market, and excited by the immense possibilities that HPLM could bring across diverse areas of the scientific community. As Jason notes, "The recent development of physiologic media, like other efforts designed to address the modeling capacity of cell culture, holds immense potential to improve understanding and interpretation of diverse biological and pharmacological studies." Read more from his 2019 commentary here: The Rise of Physiologic Media .
Jason is listed as an inventor on a patent application for HPLM assigned to Whitehead Institute.
Research results using HPLM
Research has shown that cellular performance is impacted by the use of HPLM, indicating that physiologic media can help increase the relevance of results from physiological studies.
HPLM rewires cellular metabolism
Graphical abstract summary: “Among the most prominent was an inhibition of de novo pyrimidine synthesis—an effect traced to uric acid, which is 10-fold higher in the blood of humans than of mice and other non-primates. We find that uric acid directly inhibits uridine monophosphate synthase (UMPS) and consequently reduces the sensitivity of cancer cells to the chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil. Thus, media that better recapitulates the composition of human plasma reveals unforeseen metabolic wiring and regulation, suggesting that HPLM should be of broad utility.”
Reproduced with permission from: Cantor JR, Abu-Remaileh M, Kanarkek N et al. (2017) Physiologic medium rewires cellular metabolism and reveals uric acid as an endogenous inhibitor of UMP synthase. Cell 169: 258–272.E17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.03.023
HPLM improves T lymphocyte activation
Graphical abstract summary: “The composition of human plasma differs from conventional media, and we hypothesized that such differences could impact immune cell physiology. Here, we showed that relative to the medium typically used to culture lymphocytes (RPMI), a physiologic medium (human plasma-like medium; HPLM) induced markedly different transcriptional responses in human primary T cells and in addition, improved their activation upon antigen stimulation. We found that this medium-dependent effect on T cell activation is linked to Ca2+, which is six-fold higher in HPLM than in RPMI. Thus, a medium that more closely resembles human plasma has striking effects on T cell biology, further demonstrates that medium composition can profoundly affect experimental results, and broadly suggests that physiologic media may offer a valuable way to study cultured immune cells."
Reproduced with permission from: Leney-Greene MA, Boddapati AK, Su HC et al. (2020) Human plasma-like medium improves T lymphocyte activation. iScience 23:100759. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.100759
The functional characteristics of cells, including morphology and growth, in HPLM are comparable to those in conventional basal media formulations.
Human plasma-like medium maintains cell morphology
Figure 1. Gibco HPLM supports MCF7 cell culture. MCF7 breast adenocarcinoma cells were cultured in DMEM (Cat. No. 10566016) or Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM, Cat. No. A4899101) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101).
Figure 2. Gibco HPLM supports HeLa cell culture. HeLa human cervical adenocarcinoma cells were cultured in DMEM (Cat. No. 11965092) or Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM, Cat. No. A4899101) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101).
Figure 3. Gibco HPLM supports LNCaP cell culture. LNCaP human metastatic prostate carcinoma cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 (left; Cat. No. 61870036) or HPLM (right; Cat. No. A4899101) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101).
Human plasma-like medium maintains cell growth
Figure 4. Gibco HPLM supports comparable growth rates in continuous culture. Tumor cell lines MCF7, HeLa, A549, and THP-1 were grown in DMEM (blue) or HPLM (red) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101) for five passages. Cell number was assessed at the end of each passage and used to calculate the average population doubling time for each culture.
Human plasma-like medium supports cell growth in multiple cell types
Table 1. Cell types successfully grown in human plasma-like medium
| Cell type tested | Cell origin |
|---|---|
| A375, adherent | Malignant melanoma |
| A549, adherent | Lung carcinoma |
| HCT116, adherent | Colorectal carcinoma |
| HeLa, adherent | Cervical adenocarcinoma |
| Jurkat, suspension | T cell leukemia |
| LNCaP, adherent | Metastatic prostate carcinoma |
| MCF-7, adherent | Metastatic breast cancer |
| MDA-MB-231, adherent | Metastatic breast cancer |
| NK, primary, suspension | Lymphocyte, blood |
| NOMO-1, suspension | Monoblastic/monocytic leukemia |
| PLB-985, suspension | Myeloid leukemia |
| Sp2, suspension | Mouse B lymphocyte |
| THP-1, suspension | Monocytic leukemia |
| U-2 OS, adherent | Osteosarcoma |
| WM115, adherent | Malignant melanoma |
The following customer stories feature the work of our Gibco HPLM product testers
“We used the HPLM media with cancer cell lines from different tissues and different mutation background. Our overall impression of HPLM is quite positive. HPLM media was suitable for all the tested cancer cell lines. Cells were easily and quickly adapted to the HPLM without affecting viability and cell culture performance. However, we detected relevant impact of cell proliferation, metabolism and mitochondrial function in cells grown in HPLM as compared with classical media. After our experience using HPLM in cancer cell models we consider it as the best choice to get more physiological data.”
— Omar Torres-Quesada, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Innsbruck, Austria
“Immunometabolism is an exciting area of scientific investigation that has immense potential for the development of new therapeutics. It is becoming clear that how immune cells rewire their metabolism after activation depends on what nutrients are available and in what quantities. Since we study metabolite transport in primary human immune cells, we find HPLM media to be essential for modeling metabolic flux in the most physiologically relevant way possible. We have extensively vetted the use of HPLM across CD4 T helper cell lineages and find that it supports both proliferation and effector function."
— Justin Rettenmaier, Associate Director at Jnana Therapeutics, Boston, MA
"Standard cell culture media, including the Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM), contain a non-physiological excess of nutrients, including glucose and glutamine. At the same time, they are low on uric acid. Nutrient availability, however, is a most critical factor for the regulation of mTOR calling for a careful consideration of culture conditions. Therefore, we employed Human Plasma Like Medium (HPLM) to gain a better understanding of mTORC1 regulation under physiological nutrient abundance. In line with mTOR’s intricate connection to nutrient sensing pathways, mTORC1 activity, as measured by Thr389 phosphorylation of S6K, was lower when U2OS cells were cultured in HPLM instead of DMEM. In HPLM media and irrespective of any treatment, AKT and the glucose-sensing AMPK were activated. Most importantly, however, we found that p53 was required to sustain low mTORC1 activity under HPLM culture conditions irrespective of Nutlin-3a treatment. Together, our investigation using HPLM revealed a nutrient-dependent role of p53 in mTORC1 inhibition."
— Martin Fischer, Principal Investigator at Leibniz Institute on Aging, Germany
Webinar: Physiologic medium to study human cell biology
Environmental factors influence human cell physiology and can also affect drug efficacy, but existing model systems used to study human cells have limitations for understanding these contributions. In this webinar, Dr. Jason Cantor will discuss the initial development and use of human plasma-like medium (HPLM), a physiologic medium designed to more closely reflect the metabolic composition of human blood. By examining human cancer cell lines in HPLM versus traditional media, Dr. Cantor and colleagues have recently shown that HPLM has widespread effects on metabolism and gene essentiality, and further, that HPLM can be used to reveal new insights into metabolic regulation and drug efficacy.
Speaker: Jason R. Cantor, Investigator, Morgridge Institute for Research, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Webinar highlights:
- Complete media, the workhorses of cell culture studies, typically consist of a basal medium that poorly resembles conditions encountered in the human body and a largely undefined serum supplement
- Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) is a relatively new physiologic basal medium designed to more closely reflect the metabolic composition of human blood
- The development of physiologic media, like other efforts designed to address the modeling capacity of cell culture, holds immense potential to improve understanding and interpretation of biological and pharmacological studies
Assessment of cancer spheroid formation in Human Plasma-Like Medium
Summary
- Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) is a cell growth formulation designed to mimic the metabolic profile of human plasma to help maintain the physiological state of cells.
- We demonstrate the capability of HPLM to support the growth of cancer spheroids in several well-studied cancer cell lines
Figure 5. HPLM supports 3D spheroid formation. Representative images of spheroids from various cell types cultured in RPMI standard medium and Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) that were grown for five days. Images were captured using the Invitrogen EVOS M7000 Imaging System. Scale bar = 650 µm.
Research has shown that cellular performance is impacted by the use of HPLM, indicating that physiologic media can help increase the relevance of results from physiological studies.
HPLM rewires cellular metabolism
Graphical abstract summary: “Among the most prominent was an inhibition of de novo pyrimidine synthesis—an effect traced to uric acid, which is 10-fold higher in the blood of humans than of mice and other non-primates. We find that uric acid directly inhibits uridine monophosphate synthase (UMPS) and consequently reduces the sensitivity of cancer cells to the chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil. Thus, media that better recapitulates the composition of human plasma reveals unforeseen metabolic wiring and regulation, suggesting that HPLM should be of broad utility.”
Reproduced with permission from: Cantor JR, Abu-Remaileh M, Kanarkek N et al. (2017) Physiologic medium rewires cellular metabolism and reveals uric acid as an endogenous inhibitor of UMP synthase. Cell 169: 258–272.E17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.03.023
HPLM improves T lymphocyte activation
Graphical abstract summary: “The composition of human plasma differs from conventional media, and we hypothesized that such differences could impact immune cell physiology. Here, we showed that relative to the medium typically used to culture lymphocytes (RPMI), a physiologic medium (human plasma-like medium; HPLM) induced markedly different transcriptional responses in human primary T cells and in addition, improved their activation upon antigen stimulation. We found that this medium-dependent effect on T cell activation is linked to Ca2+, which is six-fold higher in HPLM than in RPMI. Thus, a medium that more closely resembles human plasma has striking effects on T cell biology, further demonstrates that medium composition can profoundly affect experimental results, and broadly suggests that physiologic media may offer a valuable way to study cultured immune cells."
Reproduced with permission from: Leney-Greene MA, Boddapati AK, Su HC et al. (2020) Human plasma-like medium improves T lymphocyte activation. iScience 23:100759. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.100759
The functional characteristics of cells, including morphology and growth, in HPLM are comparable to those in conventional basal media formulations.
Human plasma-like medium maintains cell morphology
Figure 1. Gibco HPLM supports MCF7 cell culture. MCF7 breast adenocarcinoma cells were cultured in DMEM (Cat. No. 10566016) or Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM, Cat. No. A4899101) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101).
Figure 2. Gibco HPLM supports HeLa cell culture. HeLa human cervical adenocarcinoma cells were cultured in DMEM (Cat. No. 11965092) or Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM, Cat. No. A4899101) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101).
Figure 3. Gibco HPLM supports LNCaP cell culture. LNCaP human metastatic prostate carcinoma cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 (left; Cat. No. 61870036) or HPLM (right; Cat. No. A4899101) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101).
Human plasma-like medium maintains cell growth
Figure 4. Gibco HPLM supports comparable growth rates in continuous culture. Tumor cell lines MCF7, HeLa, A549, and THP-1 were grown in DMEM (blue) or HPLM (red) supplemented with 10% FBS (Cat. No. A3840101) for five passages. Cell number was assessed at the end of each passage and used to calculate the average population doubling time for each culture.
Human plasma-like medium supports cell growth in multiple cell types
Table 1. Cell types successfully grown in human plasma-like medium
| Cell type tested | Cell origin |
|---|---|
| A375, adherent | Malignant melanoma |
| A549, adherent | Lung carcinoma |
| HCT116, adherent | Colorectal carcinoma |
| HeLa, adherent | Cervical adenocarcinoma |
| Jurkat, suspension | T cell leukemia |
| LNCaP, adherent | Metastatic prostate carcinoma |
| MCF-7, adherent | Metastatic breast cancer |
| MDA-MB-231, adherent | Metastatic breast cancer |
| NK, primary, suspension | Lymphocyte, blood |
| NOMO-1, suspension | Monoblastic/monocytic leukemia |
| PLB-985, suspension | Myeloid leukemia |
| Sp2, suspension | Mouse B lymphocyte |
| THP-1, suspension | Monocytic leukemia |
| U-2 OS, adherent | Osteosarcoma |
| WM115, adherent | Malignant melanoma |
The following customer stories feature the work of our Gibco HPLM product testers
“We used the HPLM media with cancer cell lines from different tissues and different mutation background. Our overall impression of HPLM is quite positive. HPLM media was suitable for all the tested cancer cell lines. Cells were easily and quickly adapted to the HPLM without affecting viability and cell culture performance. However, we detected relevant impact of cell proliferation, metabolism and mitochondrial function in cells grown in HPLM as compared with classical media. After our experience using HPLM in cancer cell models we consider it as the best choice to get more physiological data.”
— Omar Torres-Quesada, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Innsbruck, Austria
“Immunometabolism is an exciting area of scientific investigation that has immense potential for the development of new therapeutics. It is becoming clear that how immune cells rewire their metabolism after activation depends on what nutrients are available and in what quantities. Since we study metabolite transport in primary human immune cells, we find HPLM media to be essential for modeling metabolic flux in the most physiologically relevant way possible. We have extensively vetted the use of HPLM across CD4 T helper cell lineages and find that it supports both proliferation and effector function."
— Justin Rettenmaier, Associate Director at Jnana Therapeutics, Boston, MA
"Standard cell culture media, including the Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM), contain a non-physiological excess of nutrients, including glucose and glutamine. At the same time, they are low on uric acid. Nutrient availability, however, is a most critical factor for the regulation of mTOR calling for a careful consideration of culture conditions. Therefore, we employed Human Plasma Like Medium (HPLM) to gain a better understanding of mTORC1 regulation under physiological nutrient abundance. In line with mTOR’s intricate connection to nutrient sensing pathways, mTORC1 activity, as measured by Thr389 phosphorylation of S6K, was lower when U2OS cells were cultured in HPLM instead of DMEM. In HPLM media and irrespective of any treatment, AKT and the glucose-sensing AMPK were activated. Most importantly, however, we found that p53 was required to sustain low mTORC1 activity under HPLM culture conditions irrespective of Nutlin-3a treatment. Together, our investigation using HPLM revealed a nutrient-dependent role of p53 in mTORC1 inhibition."
— Martin Fischer, Principal Investigator at Leibniz Institute on Aging, Germany
Webinar: Physiologic medium to study human cell biology
Environmental factors influence human cell physiology and can also affect drug efficacy, but existing model systems used to study human cells have limitations for understanding these contributions. In this webinar, Dr. Jason Cantor will discuss the initial development and use of human plasma-like medium (HPLM), a physiologic medium designed to more closely reflect the metabolic composition of human blood. By examining human cancer cell lines in HPLM versus traditional media, Dr. Cantor and colleagues have recently shown that HPLM has widespread effects on metabolism and gene essentiality, and further, that HPLM can be used to reveal new insights into metabolic regulation and drug efficacy.
Speaker: Jason R. Cantor, Investigator, Morgridge Institute for Research, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Webinar highlights:
- Complete media, the workhorses of cell culture studies, typically consist of a basal medium that poorly resembles conditions encountered in the human body and a largely undefined serum supplement
- Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) is a relatively new physiologic basal medium designed to more closely reflect the metabolic composition of human blood
- The development of physiologic media, like other efforts designed to address the modeling capacity of cell culture, holds immense potential to improve understanding and interpretation of biological and pharmacological studies
Assessment of cancer spheroid formation in Human Plasma-Like Medium
Summary
- Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) is a cell growth formulation designed to mimic the metabolic profile of human plasma to help maintain the physiological state of cells.
- We demonstrate the capability of HPLM to support the growth of cancer spheroids in several well-studied cancer cell lines
Figure 5. HPLM supports 3D spheroid formation. Representative images of spheroids from various cell types cultured in RPMI standard medium and Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) that were grown for five days. Images were captured using the Invitrogen EVOS M7000 Imaging System. Scale bar = 650 µm.
Recent publications using HPLM
Human Plasma-like Medium Improves T Lymphocyte Activation
Leney-Greene MA, Boddapati AK, Su HC, Cantor JR, Lenardo MJ. iScience. 2020;23(1):100759.
- Research area: Immunology
- Cell lines: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), T lymphocytes
- Objective: Test the impact of HPLM versus RPMI on T lymphocyte activation
- Findings: “Our data broadly highlight the fact that commonly used conditions used to culture and examine T lymphocytes in vitro may not be ideal for metabolic studies, and we also specifically identify one extracellular component (calcium) that can be easily considered by others in the field. Our approach also further demonstrates the value of using HPLM to improve the modeling capacity of in vitro cell culture systems.
MTHFD2 is a Metabolic Checkpoint Controlling Effector and Regulatory T Cell Fate and Function
Sugiura A, Andrejeva G, Voss K, Heintzman DR, Beier KL, Wolf MM, Greenwood D, Ye X, Shahi SK, Freedman SN, Cameron AM, Foerch P, Bourne T, Xu X, Garcia-Canaveras JC, Mangalam AK, Rabinowitz JD, Rathmell JC. Immunity 2022 Jan 11;55(1):65-81.e9.
- Research area: Immunology
- Cell lines: Primary human T cells
- Objective: Understand the metabolic mechanism by which activated T cells proliferate and produce inflammatory cytokines
- Findings: “…these data show that MTHFD2 [Methylenetetrahydrofolate Dehydrogenase-2] serves as a metabolic checkpoint in Th17 and Treg cells and highlight the potential of this enzyme as a novel target for anti-inflammatory immunotherapy.”
Plasmacytoid dendritic cell activation is dependent on coordinated expression of distinct amino acid transporters
Grzes KM, Sanin DE, Kabat AM, ..., Fabri M, Pearce EL, Pearce EJ. Immunity 2021 Nov 9;54(11):2514-2530.e7.
- Research area: Immunology
- Cell lines: Plasmacytoid dendritic cells isolated from PBMCs
- Objective: To understand the mechanism of activation of plasmacytoid dendritic cell by IL-3
- Findings: Plasmacytoid dendritic cells are implicated in autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The authors found that distinct L amino acid transporters SLC7A5 and SLC3A2 were upregulated in response to immunostimulatory DNA sequence CpG-A treatment. Essentially, IL-3 mediated mTORC1 pathway was involved in the response to this treatment. This further led to the production of various chemokines and cytokines downstream. Apart from culturing pDCs in conventional medium, the authors cultured them in Gibco HPLM to model in vivo situation. They observed that response of these cells to CpG-A in Gibco HPLM was dependent on IL-3 mediated mTORC1 activity. Only cells showing high kynurenine (substrate for SLC7A5 and SLC3A2) uptake and high phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 (indicator of mTORC1 activation) had the capacity to produce IFN-a and TNF in response to CpG-A treatment. The data provides a mechanistic basis for inhibiting activation of pDCs through targeting of amino acid transporters, a process which holds promise for treating diseases in which pDCs are implicated.
Physiologic Medium Rewires Cellular Metabolism and Reveals Uric Acid as an Endogenous Inhibitor of UMP Synthase
Cantor JR, Abu-Remaileh M, Kanarek N, Freinkman E, Gao X, Louissaint Jr A, Lewis CA, Sabatini DM. Cell 2017 Apr 6;169(2):258-272.
- Research area: Cancer metabolism
- Cell lines: K562, KMS12BM, NOMO1, P12-Ichikawa, SEM, SUDHL4, 786-0, A549, MCF7, SW620, BJ, CLF-PED-015T, primary acute myeloid leukemia cells
- Objective: Investigate the impact of culture of cancer cell lines in medium formulated to mimic human plasma in amino acids, salts, and additional metabolites not commonly found in culture media
- Findings: “Culture in HPLM dramatically alters the metabolism of cells compared to that in traditional media. Among its most prominent effects is an inhibition of de novo pyrimidine synthesis, which we traced to uric acid – a metabolite whose plasma concentration is up to an order of magnitude greater in higher primates than in other mammals…We find that uric acid directly inhibits UMP synthase (UMPS), and consequently, reduces the sensitivity of cancer cells to the chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil.”
CRISPR screens in physiologic medium reveal conditionally essential genes in human cells
Rossiter NJ, Huggler KS, Adelmann CH, Keys HR, Soens RW, Sabatini DM, Cantor JR. Cell Metab 2021;S1550-4131(21)00061-9.
- Research type: Cancer biology
- Cell lines: K562, MOLM-13, SUDHL4, and NOMO1
- Objective: To explore how medium composition influences gene essentiality of human cancer cell lines cultured in traditional medium versus HPLM
- Findings: “To explore how medium composition influences gene essentiality, we performed CRISPR-based screens of human cancer cell lines cultured in traditional versus human plasma-like medium (HPLM). Sets of medium-dependent fitness genes span several cellular processes and can vary with both natural cell-intrinsic diversity and the specific combination of basal and serum components that comprise typical culture media. Our findings reveal the profound impact of medium composition on gene essentiality in human cells, and also suggest general strategies for using genetic screens in HPLM to uncover new cancer vulnerabilities and gene-nutrient interactions”
Lineage-Specific Silencing of PSAT1 Induces Serine Auxotrophy and Sensitivity to Dietary Serine Starvation in Luminal Breast Tumors
Choi BH, Conger KO, Selfors LM, Coloff JL. Cell Rep 2022 Jan 18;38(3):110278.
- Research area: Cancer therapy, gene expression metabolism
- Cell lines and culture conditions:
- Luminal and basal human breast tumors: HCC1 806, MCF7, MCF7-EMPTY, MCF7-PSAT1
- Cells were grown in human plasma-like medium according to the published formulation (Cantor et al., 2017) with 5% dialyzed FBS. Media was changed at least every two days.
- Objective: Identify differences in metabolic gene expression that may limit pathway redundancy and create therapeutic vulnerabilities
- Findings: “In summary, our studies of lineage-dependent gene expression in breast cancer have revealed a novel vulnerability in serine metabolism specifically in luminal breast tumors. Lineage-specific suppression of PSAT1 induces serine auxotrophy in luminal breast cancer cells and sensitizes them serine starvation. These findings demonstrate that lineage-dependent gene expression is sufficient to limit pathway redundancy and create therapeutic vulnerabilities that could be taken advantage of to target specific subtypes of tumors.”
Inhibiting both proline biosynthesis and lipogenesis synergistically suppresses tumor growth
Liu M, Wang Y, Yang C, Ruan Y, Bai C, Chu Q, Cui Y, Chen C, Ying G, Li B. J Exp Med 2020 Mar 2;217(3):e20191226.
- Research area: Cancer metabolism
- Cell lines: HeLa, MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, A549, HepG2, 8133, SKOV3, and mouse 4T1 cells
- Objectives:
- To build up an electron balance model to reveal the chemical mechanism of metabolic reprogramming under hypoxia
- HPLM was used to test cellular metabolism at physiological (5%), hypoxic (0.5%), and normal oxygen (20%) concentrations
- Findings: “Overall, our model suggests a promising combination of targets to control tumor growth under hypoxia. Moreover, this treatment can be further intensified by blocking electron transfer established on our concept. Therefore, it is anticipated that the model of electron balance developed in the current study could help us to better understand cancer metabolism and its therapeutic application in the future.”
Systematic alteration of in vitro metabolic environments reveals empirical growth relationships in cancer cell phenotypes
Kochanowski K, Sander T, Link H, Chang J, Altschuler SJ, Wu LF. Cell Reports 2021 Jan 19;34,108647.
- Research area: Cancer metabolism
- Cell lines: PC9, A375, A549, SKBR3, HEK293T
- Objective: Examine the impact of the metabolic environment on cancer drug response, cell migration, and lactate accumulation.
- Findings: “…across diverse metabolic environments, empirical growth relationships are clearly pronounced for drug-treatment survival, weakly present for cell migration, and absent for lactate overflow…[which] is instead determined by the cells’ ability to maintain high rates of sugar uptake.”
Mitochondrial NADP(+) is essential for proline biosynthesis during cell growth
Tran DH, Kesavan R, Rion H, Soflaee MH, Solmonson A, Bezwada D, Vu HS, Cai F, Phillips JA, DeBerardinis RJ, Hoxhaj G. Nat Metab 2021 Apr;3(4):571–585.
- Research area: Cellular metabolism
- Cell lines: HEK293E, HeLa, K562
- Objective: Identify the amino acid(s) responsible for the rescue of cell growth in NADK2-deficient cells
- Findings: “We uncover the requirement of mitochondrial NADPH and NADK2 activity for the generation of the pyrroline-5-carboxylate metabolite intermediate as the bottleneck step in the proline biosynthesis pathway. Notably, after NADK2 deletion, proline is required to support nucleotide and protein synthesis, making proline essential for the growth and proliferation of NADK2-deficient cells. Thus, we highlight proline auxotrophy in mammalian cells and discover that mitochondrial NADPH is essential to enable proline biosynthesis.”
Human Plasma-like Medium Improves T Lymphocyte Activation
Leney-Greene MA, Boddapati AK, Su HC, Cantor JR, Lenardo MJ. iScience. 2020;23(1):100759.
- Research area: Immunology
- Cell lines: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), T lymphocytes
- Objective: Test the impact of HPLM versus RPMI on T lymphocyte activation
- Findings: “Our data broadly highlight the fact that commonly used conditions used to culture and examine T lymphocytes in vitro may not be ideal for metabolic studies, and we also specifically identify one extracellular component (calcium) that can be easily considered by others in the field. Our approach also further demonstrates the value of using HPLM to improve the modeling capacity of in vitro cell culture systems.
MTHFD2 is a Metabolic Checkpoint Controlling Effector and Regulatory T Cell Fate and Function
Sugiura A, Andrejeva G, Voss K, Heintzman DR, Beier KL, Wolf MM, Greenwood D, Ye X, Shahi SK, Freedman SN, Cameron AM, Foerch P, Bourne T, Xu X, Garcia-Canaveras JC, Mangalam AK, Rabinowitz JD, Rathmell JC. Immunity 2022 Jan 11;55(1):65-81.e9.
- Research area: Immunology
- Cell lines: Primary human T cells
- Objective: Understand the metabolic mechanism by which activated T cells proliferate and produce inflammatory cytokines
- Findings: “…these data show that MTHFD2 [Methylenetetrahydrofolate Dehydrogenase-2] serves as a metabolic checkpoint in Th17 and Treg cells and highlight the potential of this enzyme as a novel target for anti-inflammatory immunotherapy.”
Plasmacytoid dendritic cell activation is dependent on coordinated expression of distinct amino acid transporters
Grzes KM, Sanin DE, Kabat AM, ..., Fabri M, Pearce EL, Pearce EJ. Immunity 2021 Nov 9;54(11):2514-2530.e7.
- Research area: Immunology
- Cell lines: Plasmacytoid dendritic cells isolated from PBMCs
- Objective: To understand the mechanism of activation of plasmacytoid dendritic cell by IL-3
- Findings: Plasmacytoid dendritic cells are implicated in autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The authors found that distinct L amino acid transporters SLC7A5 and SLC3A2 were upregulated in response to immunostimulatory DNA sequence CpG-A treatment. Essentially, IL-3 mediated mTORC1 pathway was involved in the response to this treatment. This further led to the production of various chemokines and cytokines downstream. Apart from culturing pDCs in conventional medium, the authors cultured them in Gibco HPLM to model in vivo situation. They observed that response of these cells to CpG-A in Gibco HPLM was dependent on IL-3 mediated mTORC1 activity. Only cells showing high kynurenine (substrate for SLC7A5 and SLC3A2) uptake and high phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 (indicator of mTORC1 activation) had the capacity to produce IFN-a and TNF in response to CpG-A treatment. The data provides a mechanistic basis for inhibiting activation of pDCs through targeting of amino acid transporters, a process which holds promise for treating diseases in which pDCs are implicated.
Physiologic Medium Rewires Cellular Metabolism and Reveals Uric Acid as an Endogenous Inhibitor of UMP Synthase
Cantor JR, Abu-Remaileh M, Kanarek N, Freinkman E, Gao X, Louissaint Jr A, Lewis CA, Sabatini DM. Cell 2017 Apr 6;169(2):258-272.
- Research area: Cancer metabolism
- Cell lines: K562, KMS12BM, NOMO1, P12-Ichikawa, SEM, SUDHL4, 786-0, A549, MCF7, SW620, BJ, CLF-PED-015T, primary acute myeloid leukemia cells
- Objective: Investigate the impact of culture of cancer cell lines in medium formulated to mimic human plasma in amino acids, salts, and additional metabolites not commonly found in culture media
- Findings: “Culture in HPLM dramatically alters the metabolism of cells compared to that in traditional media. Among its most prominent effects is an inhibition of de novo pyrimidine synthesis, which we traced to uric acid – a metabolite whose plasma concentration is up to an order of magnitude greater in higher primates than in other mammals…We find that uric acid directly inhibits UMP synthase (UMPS), and consequently, reduces the sensitivity of cancer cells to the chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil.”
CRISPR screens in physiologic medium reveal conditionally essential genes in human cells
Rossiter NJ, Huggler KS, Adelmann CH, Keys HR, Soens RW, Sabatini DM, Cantor JR. Cell Metab 2021;S1550-4131(21)00061-9.
- Research type: Cancer biology
- Cell lines: K562, MOLM-13, SUDHL4, and NOMO1
- Objective: To explore how medium composition influences gene essentiality of human cancer cell lines cultured in traditional medium versus HPLM
- Findings: “To explore how medium composition influences gene essentiality, we performed CRISPR-based screens of human cancer cell lines cultured in traditional versus human plasma-like medium (HPLM). Sets of medium-dependent fitness genes span several cellular processes and can vary with both natural cell-intrinsic diversity and the specific combination of basal and serum components that comprise typical culture media. Our findings reveal the profound impact of medium composition on gene essentiality in human cells, and also suggest general strategies for using genetic screens in HPLM to uncover new cancer vulnerabilities and gene-nutrient interactions”
Lineage-Specific Silencing of PSAT1 Induces Serine Auxotrophy and Sensitivity to Dietary Serine Starvation in Luminal Breast Tumors
Choi BH, Conger KO, Selfors LM, Coloff JL. Cell Rep 2022 Jan 18;38(3):110278.
- Research area: Cancer therapy, gene expression metabolism
- Cell lines and culture conditions:
- Luminal and basal human breast tumors: HCC1 806, MCF7, MCF7-EMPTY, MCF7-PSAT1
- Cells were grown in human plasma-like medium according to the published formulation (Cantor et al., 2017) with 5% dialyzed FBS. Media was changed at least every two days.
- Objective: Identify differences in metabolic gene expression that may limit pathway redundancy and create therapeutic vulnerabilities
- Findings: “In summary, our studies of lineage-dependent gene expression in breast cancer have revealed a novel vulnerability in serine metabolism specifically in luminal breast tumors. Lineage-specific suppression of PSAT1 induces serine auxotrophy in luminal breast cancer cells and sensitizes them serine starvation. These findings demonstrate that lineage-dependent gene expression is sufficient to limit pathway redundancy and create therapeutic vulnerabilities that could be taken advantage of to target specific subtypes of tumors.”
Inhibiting both proline biosynthesis and lipogenesis synergistically suppresses tumor growth
Liu M, Wang Y, Yang C, Ruan Y, Bai C, Chu Q, Cui Y, Chen C, Ying G, Li B. J Exp Med 2020 Mar 2;217(3):e20191226.
- Research area: Cancer metabolism
- Cell lines: HeLa, MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, A549, HepG2, 8133, SKOV3, and mouse 4T1 cells
- Objectives:
- To build up an electron balance model to reveal the chemical mechanism of metabolic reprogramming under hypoxia
- HPLM was used to test cellular metabolism at physiological (5%), hypoxic (0.5%), and normal oxygen (20%) concentrations
- Findings: “Overall, our model suggests a promising combination of targets to control tumor growth under hypoxia. Moreover, this treatment can be further intensified by blocking electron transfer established on our concept. Therefore, it is anticipated that the model of electron balance developed in the current study could help us to better understand cancer metabolism and its therapeutic application in the future.”
Systematic alteration of in vitro metabolic environments reveals empirical growth relationships in cancer cell phenotypes
Kochanowski K, Sander T, Link H, Chang J, Altschuler SJ, Wu LF. Cell Reports 2021 Jan 19;34,108647.
- Research area: Cancer metabolism
- Cell lines: PC9, A375, A549, SKBR3, HEK293T
- Objective: Examine the impact of the metabolic environment on cancer drug response, cell migration, and lactate accumulation.
- Findings: “…across diverse metabolic environments, empirical growth relationships are clearly pronounced for drug-treatment survival, weakly present for cell migration, and absent for lactate overflow…[which] is instead determined by the cells’ ability to maintain high rates of sugar uptake.”
Mitochondrial NADP(+) is essential for proline biosynthesis during cell growth
Tran DH, Kesavan R, Rion H, Soflaee MH, Solmonson A, Bezwada D, Vu HS, Cai F, Phillips JA, DeBerardinis RJ, Hoxhaj G. Nat Metab 2021 Apr;3(4):571–585.
- Research area: Cellular metabolism
- Cell lines: HEK293E, HeLa, K562
- Objective: Identify the amino acid(s) responsible for the rescue of cell growth in NADK2-deficient cells
- Findings: “We uncover the requirement of mitochondrial NADPH and NADK2 activity for the generation of the pyrroline-5-carboxylate metabolite intermediate as the bottleneck step in the proline biosynthesis pathway. Notably, after NADK2 deletion, proline is required to support nucleotide and protein synthesis, making proline essential for the growth and proliferation of NADK2-deficient cells. Thus, we highlight proline auxotrophy in mammalian cells and discover that mitochondrial NADPH is essential to enable proline biosynthesis.”
Order Gibco HPLM
| Item | Cat No. |
|---|---|
| 2-hydroxybutyric acid (available through Alfa Aesar) | Alfa Aesar A18636-03 |
| Fetal bovine serum, dialyzed, US origin | 26400044 |
| 6-Well Plate, TC Surface, Pack of 1 | 140675 |
| 96-Well Plate, TC Surface, Pack of 1 | 167008 |
| 150 mm EasYDish, TC Surface, Pack of 10 | 150468 |
| DPBS, no calcium, no magnesium | 14190144 |
| TrypLE Express Enzyme (1X), no phenol red | 12604013 |
| Trypsin-EDTA, 0.05%, phenol red | 25300054 |
| Trypan blue solution, 0.4% | 15250061 |
| Countess 3 Automated Cell Counter | AMQAX2000 |
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