Metabolic heterogeneity of colorectal cancer as a prognostic factor: insights gained from fluorescence lifetime imaging

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.94438.2
• Publication Date: 2024-08-06T13:25:21Z
• Authors: Anastasia D Komarova; Snezhana D Sinyus...; Ilia D Shchechkin; Irina N Druzhkova; Sofia A Smirnova; Vitaliy M Terekhov; Artem M Mozherov; Nadezhda I Ignatova; Elena E Nikonova; Evgeny A Shirshin; Liubov E Shimolina; Sergey V Gamayunov; Vladislav I Shche...; Marina V Shirmanova
• Keywords: Ex vivo

Heterogeneity of tumor metabolism is an important, but still poorly understood aspect biology. Present work focused on the visualization and quantification cellular metabolic heterogeneity colorectal cancer using fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) redox cofactor NAD(P)H. FLIM-microscopy NAD(P)H was performed in vitro four cell lines, vivo types tumors mice ex patients’ samples. The dispersion bimodality decay parameters were evaluated to quantify intercellular heterogeneity. Our results demonstrate that have significantly higher energy compared with cultured cells xenografts, which displayed as a wider frequently bimodal distribution contribution free (glycolytic) fraction within sample. Among tumors, larger high-grade early stage ones, without, however, any association bimodality. These indicate cell-level assessed from FLIM has potential become clinical prognostic factor.