Serum glutamate levels correlate with Gleason score and glutamate blockade decreases proliferation, migration, and invasion and induces apoptosis in prostate cancer cells.

Purpose: During glutaminolysis, glutamine is catabolized to glutamate and incorporated into citric acid cycle and lipogenesis. Serum glutamate levels were measured in patients with primary prostate cancer or metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPCa) to establish clinical relevance. The effect of glutamate deprivation or blockade by metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 (GRM1) antagonists was investigated on prostate cancer cells' growth, migration, and invasion to establish biologic relevance.

Glucose induces expression of rat pyruvate carboxylase through a carbohydrate response element in the distal gene promoter.

Pyruvate carboxylase is an enzyme of the so-called pyruvate cycling pathways, which have been proposed to contribute to glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in pancreatic beta-cells. In the rat insulinoma cell line 832/13, transcripts from both the distal and proximal gene promoter for pyruvate carboxylase are up-regulated by glucose, with pyruvate carboxylase being expressed mainly from the distal gene promoter. At position -408 to -392 relative to the transcription start site, the distal gene promoter was found to contain a ChoRE (carbohydrate response element).