13C HR MAS MRS reveals differences in the glucose metabolism between two breast cancer xenograft models with different gene expression pattern

Introduction Two breast cancer xenograft models have been established from human breast cancer patients and ortothopically xenografted in female SCID mice (1). The models represent a basal-like (poor prognosis) and a luminal-like (better prognosis) genetic profile. Using HR MAS H MR spectroscopy, it has been shown that these two models have distinct metabolic profiles (2). It is well known that tumor cells metabolize glucose at a higher rate than normal cells (3). This is mainly used to form lactate and alanine and is observed even when high concentrations of oxygen are present. Labelled [C]-glucose can be used to measure glucose consumption and transformation with MR spectroscopy. The purpose of this work was to investigate the rate of glucose metabolism in the two breast cancer xenograft models.