Proteomic profiling reveals ACSS2 facilitating metabolic support in acute myeloid leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease characterized by genomic aberrations in oncogenes, cytogenetic abnormalities, and an aberrant epigenetic landscape. Nearly 50% of AML cases will relapse with current treatment. A major source of therapy resistance is the interaction of mesenchymal stroma with leukemic cells resulting in therapeutic protection. We aimed to determine pro-survival/anti-apoptotic protein networks involved in the stroma protection of leukemic cells. Proteomic profiling of cultured primary AML (n = 14) with Hs5 stroma cell line uncovered an up-regulation of energy-favorable metabolic proteins. Next, we modulated stroma-induced drug resistance with an epigenetic drug library, resulting in reduced apoptosis with histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) treatment versus other epigenetic modifying compounds. Quantitative phosphoproteomic probing of this effect further revealed a metabolic-enriched phosphoproteome including significant up-regulation of acetyl-coenzyme A synthetase (ACSS2, S30) in leukemia-stroma HDACi treated cocultures compared with untreated monocultures. Validating these findings, we show ACSS2 substrate, acetate, promotes leukemic proliferation, ACSS2 knockout in leukemia cells inhibits leukemic proliferation and ACSS2 knockout in the stroma impairs leukemic metabolic fitness. Finally, we identify ACSS1/ACSS2-high expression AML subtype correlating with poor overall survival. Collectively, this study uncovers the leukemia-stroma phosphoproteome emphasizing a role for ACSS2 in mediating AML growth and drug resistance.