Investigation of mitochondrial oxidative phosforylation enzymes in hematological cancers

Abstract

It is known that cancerous cells are different from normal cells in their structure and functions. It is aimed to determine whether there is a change in the activities of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPOS) respiratory enzymes, the main energy production site of cells, in various haematological cancers and to use the obtained data for therapeutic purposes. In this study, leukocyte mitochondria were isolated from blood samples obtained from patients with non-hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), hodgkin lemphoma (HL), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), acute myelogenic leukaemia (AML), acute lymphocytic leukaemia (ALL), chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), multiple myeloma and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and controls. The enzyme activities of oxidative phosphorylation complexes I, II and IV were measured by spectrophotometric method. Enzyme activity results were statistically evaluated according to various criteria. Enzyme activities were evaluated according to gender, chemotherapy or not and disease groups. As a result of these statistical evaluations, no correlation was found between the type of haematological cancer and gender (p>0.05). The difference in mitochondrial oxidative complex enzyme activities between patients receiving chemotherapy and those not receiving chemotherapy was insignificant (p>0.05). When the enzyme activities of the control group and all haematological cancer cells studied were compared, the difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). As a result, changes in the activities of OXPOS respiratory enzymes were found in various haematological cancers. The large number of therapies that specifically target mitochondria, the altered metabolic functions and dynamics of mitochondria in cancer cells make it a target for cancer therapeutics.