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conferenceseries
.com
Volume 9, Issue 9 (Suppl)
J Cancer Sci Ther, an open access journal
ISSN: 1948-5956
World Cancer 2017
October 19-21, 2017
25
th
WORLD CANCER CONFERENCE
October 19-21, 2017 | Rome, Italy
Hexokinase 2 is a molecular bridge linking telomerase and autophagy
Jae-il Roh, Yujin Kim, Jahyun Oh, Yunmi Kim, Jihyun Lee
and
Han-Woong Lee
Yonsei University, South Korea
A
utophagy is systematically regulated by upstream factors and nutrients. Recent studies report that telomerase and
hexokinase 2 (HK2) regulate autophagy through mTOR and that telomerase has the capacity to bind to the HK2 promoter.
Here, we show that HK2 is a molecular bridge linking telomerase to autophagy. TERT-induced autophagy activation and its
further enhancement by glucose deprivation were suppressed by HK2 inhibition in HepG2 cells. The HK2 downstream factor
mTOR was responsible for TERT-induced autophagy activation under glucose deprivation, implying that TERT promotes
autophagy through a HK2-mTOR pathway. TERC played a similar role as TERT, and simultaneous expression of TERT and
TERC synergistically enhanced HK2 expression and autophagy. At the gene level, TERT bound to the HK2 promoter at a
specific region harboring the telomerase-responsive sequence TTGGG. Mutagenesis of TERC and the TERT-responsive
element on the HK2 promoter revealed that TERC is required for the binding of TERT to the HK2 promoter. We demonstrate
the existence of a telomerase-HK2-mTOR-autophagy axis and suggest that inhibition of the interaction between telomerase
and the HK2 promoter sensitizes cells to metabolic stress, and this pathway could be targeted for anti-cancer therapies.
Biography
Jae-il Roh has completed his PhD from Yonsei University and continuing his research at the same laboratory. He is working in Prof. Han-Woong Lee’s lab and
interested in mouse genetics, generation of mouse models, and cancer.
rohjaeil@gmail.comJae-il Roh et al., J Cancer Sci Ther 2017, 9:9(Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/1948-5956-C1-112