AUTHOR=Zhao Pan , Shen Yao , Li Mengyang , Dan Hanjun , Zhao Zhiming , Zhang Jian TITLE=Integration of Transcriptomics and Metabolomics Reveals the Antitumor Mechanism Underlying Tadalafil in Colorectal Cancer JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.793499 DOI=10.3389/fphar.2022.793499 ISSN=1663-9812 ABSTRACT=

The potential role of tadalafil, a PDE5 inhibitor, in anticancer activity and prolonged survival has been proposed. However, the systematic effects of tadalafil in colorectal cancer were not fully understood. In this study, we assessed the anti-tumor activity of tadalafil in human colorectal cancer cells. A systematic perspective of the tadalafil-induced anti-tumor mechanism was provided by the integration of transcriptomics and metabolomics. We found that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were mainly involved in microRNAs in cancer, purine metabolism, glycosphingolipid biosynthesis, arginine biosynthesis, and amino acid metabolism. Amino acid metabolism, especially alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism was the most of the differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) through the analysis of metabolomics. The conjoint analysis of DEGs and DAMs presented that they were also mainly involved in alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism. Amino acid metabolism-related genes, GPT, GGT5, and TAT, were significantly decreased after tadalafil treatment. In particular, the disturbance of alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism may be the explanation for the major mechanism resulting from tadalafil anti-tumor activity.