PGC-1alpha levels correlate with survival in patients with stage III NSCLC and may define a new biomarker to metabolism-targeted therapy

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, with one-third diagnosed with locally advanced (stage III) disease. Preoperative induction chemo-radiotherapy is key for the treatment of these patients, however conventional cisplatin based approaches has apparently reached a plateau of effectiveness. In the search for new therapies, the targeting of tumor metabolism is revealed as an interesting option to improve the patient’s responses. Here we describe the importance of PGC-1alpha and GAPDH/MT-CO1 ratio levels as surrogates of the Warburg effect from a series of 28 stage III NSCLC patients, on PFS, OS and PET uptake. Moreover, our results show a great variability between tumors of different individuals, ranging from very glycolytic to more OXPHOS-dependent tumors, which compromises the success of therapies directed to metabolism. In this sense, using 3 different cell lines, we describe the relevance of Warburg effect on the response to metabolism-targeted therapies. Specifically, we show that the inhibitory effect of metformin on cell viability depends on cell’s dependence on the OXPHOS system. The results on cell lines, together with the results of PGC-1alpha and GAPDH/MT-CO1 as biomarkers on patient’s biopsies, would point out what type of patients would benefit more from the use of these drugs.