How Human Lung Adenocarcinoma Cells React Towards Long-term Metabolic Stress; A Follow Up

Introduction: A key challenge in fighting against cancer is cancer recurrence and resistance. Apart from the advances in the field of cancer treatment, the outcome is not still as high as expected. This may be partly due to the poor understanding about the true biology of a tumour. Tumour is a complex tissue and cells in its central parts bear nutrition deficiency and poor angiogenesis. Objective: The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of long-term serum starvation on an in vitro model of human lung adenocarcinoma, A549 cell line. Methods: The cells bore serum starvation for 6 days and at 24-hour intervals, their proliferation, size, mitochondrial function and protein content was studied. Also, at 24-hour intervals and following at least 1 day of starvation, the cells were released in a 10% serum supplemented media and their reactions were studied as above. Results: The results demonstrated that despite the harsh conditions around the starved cells, they still proliferate and show increased mitochondrial function and protein content. Upon re-exposure to favourable conditions, this increase is more obvious. These observations were not recorded in control cells. Conclusion: It was concluded that following a long-term metabolic stress, these cells do not die, but become stronger and that can be a plausible explanation behind the difficulty in treatment of recurrent cancers.