Browsing by Author "Zhao, Heng"

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    The effects of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids on prostate cancer-proteomic and phosphoproteomic studies
    (2016-05) Zhao, Heng; Wang, Mu
    This dissertation studies the effects of fatty acids on prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is one of the most common malignant diseases in males in the U.S. Because of the slow progression of this disease, early intervention methods, especially, dietary fatty acid interventions are considered very important to control the disease in early stages. This study describes how the depletion of the enzyme for endogenous fatty acid synthesis, fatty acid synthase, influences the expression of enzymes that metabolize dietary fatty acids and show how dietary fatty acids affect prostate cancer protein expression and function. Fatty acid synthase is an oncoprotein overexpressed in prostate cancer and its expression is suppressed with omega-3 fatty acid treatment. This study finds that the depletion of fatty acid synthase by siRNA knockdown induces suppression of cyclooxygenase-2 and fatty acid desaturase-1. Our results also show that fish oil (omega-3 fatty acid), but not oleic acid (omega-9 fatty acid), suppresses prostate cancer cell viability. Assessment of fatty acid synthesis activity indicates that oleic acid is a more potent inhibitor than fish oil of de novo fatty acid biosynthesis. In addition, the inhibition of its activity occurs over several days while its effects on cell viability occur within 24 hours. To better understand this relationship, label free LC-MS/MS based mass spectrometry was carried out to determine global proteomic and phosphoproteomic profiles of the prostate cell line PC3, with longitudinal treatment with fish oil or oleic acid. With short-term fish oil treatment, sequestosome-1was elevated. Prolonged treatment induced downregulation of microseminoprotein, a proinflammation factor, as well as proteins in the glycolysis pathway. In the phosphoproteomics study, we confidently identified 828 phosphopeptides from 361 phosphoproteins. Quantitative comparison between fish oil or oleic acid treated groups and the untreated group suggests that the fish oil induces changes in phosphorylation of proteins involved in the pathways associated with cell viability and metabolic processes, with fish oil inducing significant decreases in the levels of phospho-PDHA1Ser232 and phospho-PDHA1Ser300 and they were accompanied by an increase in PDH activity, suggesting a role for n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in controlling the balance between lipid and glucose oxidation.
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    Metabolic and Molecular Regulation of Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Prostate Cancer
    (Wiley, 2016-03) Zhao, Heng; Pflug, Beth R.; Lai, Xianyin; Wang, Mu; Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, IU School of Medicine
    Purpose The aim of this study is to investigate the role of n-3 and n-9 fatty acids in crucial processes involved in prostate cancer cell growth through a large-scale proteomic analysis. Experimental design We used a label-free protein quantification method to profile global protein expression of fish oil and oleic acid treated PCa cells and validated a panel of differentially expressed proteins by either Western blot or multiple reaction monitoring. Bioinformatic analysis was also performed to uncover the pathways involved in fatty acid metabolism. Results Fish oil, not oleic acid, suppresses prostate cancer cell viability. Assessment of fatty acid synthesis pathway activity also shows that oleic acid is a more potent inhibitor than fish oil on de novo fatty acid synthesis. Although fatty acid synthase activity decreases with fish oil treatment, the inhibition of its activity occurs over time while reduction in viability occurs within 24 h. Bioinformatic analysis revealed the pathways altered by these fatty acid treatments. Conclusions and clinical relevance This study suggests that suppression of cell viability by fish oil is independent of fatty acid synthase and fish oil regulates prostate cancer cells through activation of other pathways depending upon length of exposure to fish oil.