Fingerprint of cell metabolism in the experimentally observed interstitial pH and pO2 in solid tumors

Understanding cancer cell metabolism and targeting associated pathways is a field of increasing interest. Helmlinger and colleagues measured average pH and pO(2) as functions of distance from a single blood vessel on the micrometer scale. We show that these results provide unique insight into cancer cell metabolism in vivo when combined with an appropriate mathematical model. We calculate pH as a function of distance from a single blood vessel and for a given metabolism while incorporating a single CO(2) buffer with effective diffusion constants. By assuming that cancer cell metabolism is dominated by respiration with a smaller component of glycolysis in the normoxic state, by more balanced respiration and glycolysis in the hypoxic state, and by glycolysis alone in the anoxic state, we are able to semiquantitatively derive the experimental results of Helmlinger and colleagues. We also apply our model to glycolysis-impaired metabolism and show that the low pH and high pO(2) observed in these tumors may be related to the substantial shift from a respiration-dominated metabolism to one in which glutaminolysis dominates. Based on this, we propose an in vivo experimental measurement of pH in a glycolysis-impaired tumor to validate the modeling results.