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. 2024 Apr 4;12:RP87674. doi: 10.7554/eLife.87674

Context-dependent modification of PFKFB3 in hematopoietic stem cells promotes anaerobic glycolysis and ensures stress hematopoiesis

Shintaro Watanuki 1,2,, Hiroshi Kobayashi 1,3,†,, Yuki Sugiura 4,5,, Masamichi Yamamoto 6, Daiki Karigane 1,2, Kohei Shiroshita 1,2, Yuriko Sorimachi 1,7, Shinya Fujita 1,2, Takayuki Morikawa 1, Shuhei Koide 8, Motohiko Oshima 8, Akira Nishiyama 9, Koichi Murakami 9,10, Miho Haraguchi 1, Shinpei Tamaki 1, Takehiro Yamamoto 4, Tomohiro Yabushita 11, Yosuke Tanaka 12, Go Nagamatsu 13,14, Hiroaki Honda 15, Shinichiro Okamoto 2, Nobuhito Goda 7, Tomohiko Tamura 9,10, Ayako Nakamura-Ishizu 16, Makoto Suematsu 4,17, Atsushi Iwama 8, Toshio Suda 12,18, Keiyo Takubo 1,3,
Editors: Simón Méndez-Ferrer19, Utpal Banerjee20
PMCID: PMC10994660  PMID: 38573813

Abstract

Metabolic pathways are plastic and rapidly change in response to stress or perturbation. Current metabolic profiling techniques require lysis of many cells, complicating the tracking of metabolic changes over time after stress in rare cells such as hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Here, we aimed to identify the key metabolic enzymes that define differences in glycolytic metabolism between steady-state and stress conditions in murine HSCs and elucidate their regulatory mechanisms. Through quantitative 13C metabolic flux analysis of glucose metabolism using high-sensitivity glucose tracing and mathematical modeling, we found that HSCs activate the glycolytic rate-limiting enzyme phosphofructokinase (PFK) during proliferation and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) inhibition. Real-time measurement of ATP levels in single HSCs demonstrated that proliferative stress or OXPHOS inhibition led to accelerated glycolysis via increased activity of PFKFB3, the enzyme regulating an allosteric PFK activator, within seconds to meet ATP requirements. Furthermore, varying stresses differentially activated PFKFB3 via PRMT1-dependent methylation during proliferative stress and via AMPK-dependent phosphorylation during OXPHOS inhibition. Overexpression of Pfkfb3 induced HSC proliferation and promoted differentiated cell production, whereas inhibition or loss of Pfkfb3 suppressed them. This study reveals the flexible and multilayered regulation of HSC glycolytic metabolism to sustain hematopoiesis under stress and provides techniques to better understand the physiological metabolism of rare hematopoietic cells.

Research organism: Mouse

Introduction

Activities governing nutrient requirements and metabolic pathways in individual cells maintain tissue homeostasis and respond to stress through metabolite production. ATP, produced via cytosolic glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), is the universal energy currency of all organisms; it regulates all anabolic or catabolic cellular activities (Schirmer and Evans, 1990; Denton et al., 1975; Harris et al., 1997). Precise control of intracellular ATP concentrations is critical, as ATP is the rate determiner of many ATP-dependent biochemical reactions (Sols, 1981; Gabriel et al., 1985; Frieden, 1965; Hardie et al., 2012; Lin and Hardie, 2018; Hardie and Carling, 1997).

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are tissue stem cells at the apex of the hematopoietic hierarchy; their function is maintained throughout life by a rigorous metabolic program and a complex interplay of gene expression, epigenetic regulation, intracellular signaling, chromatin remodeling, autophagy, and environmental factors (Pinho and Frenette, 2019; Crane et al., 2017; de Haan and Lazare, 2018; Mejia-Ramirez and Florian, 2020; Orkin and Zon, 2008). Conventional analyses of the metabolic programs of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) have revealed diverse differentiation potentials and cell-cycling statuses and coordinated activities that maintain hematopoiesis (Nakada et al., 2010; Gurumurthy et al., 2010; Gan et al., 2010; Sahin et al., 2011; Luchsinger et al., 2016; de Almeida et al., 2017; Ansó et al., 2017; Nakamura-Ishizu et al., 2018; Qi et al., 2021; Filippi and Ghaffari, 2019; Guitart et al., 2017; Hsu and Qu, 2013). Among the HSPC fractions, HSCs possess unique cell cycle quiescence, high self-renewal and differentiation capacity in response to stimuli, and resistance to cellular stress, including reactive oxygen species and physiological aging (Pinho and Frenette, 2019; Busch et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2014; Ho et al., 2017; Laurenti and Göttgens, 2018). These properties are regulated by a balance between glycolysis and mitochondrial OXPHOS, requiring biosynthesis of ATP and various macromolecules that confer resilience to stress (Nakamura-Ishizu et al., 2020). Among the known regulators of ATP-producing pathways, glycolytic enzymes maintain HSCs and hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) by regulating cellular survival and cell cycle quiescence (Takubo et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014; Simsek et al., 2010). Loss of mitochondrial genes in HPSCs also induces HSC differentiation defects (Inoue et al., 2010; Yu et al., 2013; Bejarano-García et al., 2016). Moreover, disrupting the mitochondrial complex III subunit depletes both differentiated hematopoietic cells and quiescent HSCs (Ansó et al., 2017). Although glycolysis and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle are metabolically linked, pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase activity, which can uncouple these pathways, is required to maintain HSC function (Takubo et al., 2013; Halvarsson et al., 2017).

During HSC division, cell metabolism is reprogrammed to activate fatty acid β-oxidation (FAO) and purine metabolism (Ito et al., 2012; Karigane et al., 2016; Umemoto et al., 2022). Furthermore, Liang et al. reported that activated HSCs mainly rely on glycolysis as their energy source (Liang et al., 2020). However, the mechanisms by which each ATP-producing pathway and their connections are differentially regulated between HSCs and differentiated cells at steady state, during cell cycling, or during stress remain unknown. Recently, it has been shown that deeply quiescent HSCs do not activate cell cycle under stress (Bowling et al., 2020; Fanti et al., 2023; Munz et al., 2023). Therefore, it remains unclear whether metabolic changes such as the individual ATP-producing pathways and their interconnections occur uniformly in all HSCs, including these deeply quiescent HSCs. Furthermore, the underlying hub metabolic enzyme responsible for changes in the metabolic system of HSCs under stress has not been identified. HSCs are essential for cell therapy, including HSC transplantation, and in order to comprehensively elucidate the metabolic systems that have attracted attention as their regulatory mechanisms, recent studies have included metabolomic analyses using rare cell types such as HSCs (Qi et al., 2021; Agathocleous et al., 2017; DeVilbiss et al., 2021; Lengefeld et al., 2021; Schönberger et al., 2022), as well as isotope tracer analyses of undifferentiated hematopoietic cells purified after in vivo administration of isotopic glucose (Jun et al., 2021). Although these approaches are useful for obtaining comprehensive information on intracellular metabolites, they are not suited to track real-time changes in cellular metabolism at high resolution. Therefore, new approaches are necessary to analyze metabolites quantitatively and continuously without disturbing the physiological states of single cells while integrating the recently reported metabolome analysis techniques. In this study, we aimed to identify the key metabolic enzymes that define differences in glycolytic metabolism between steady-state and stress conditions in HSCs and elucidate their regulatory mechanisms using a quantitative and mathematical approach. Our findings provide a platform for quantitative metabolic analysis of rare cells such as HSCs, characterize the overall metabolic reprogramming of HSCs during stress loading, and highlight the key enzyme involved in this process.

Results

HSC cell cycling increases anaerobic glycolytic flux

To determine how cell cycle progression alters HSC metabolism in vivo, we intraperitoneally and intravenously treated mice with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) to induce HSC cell cycling (Figure 1—figure supplement 1A). For analysis after 5-FU administration, the Lineage (Lin)- Sca-1+ c-Kit+ (LSK) gate was expanded to include HSCs with decreased c-Kit expression levels early after 5-FU treatment, for example high Sca-1-expressing cells and c-Kit-high to -dim Lin- cells, based on the previous report (Arai et al., 2004; Umemoto et al., 2022; Figure 1—figure supplement 1B). This expanded LSK gate was consistent with the patterns of c-Kit expression observed in endothelial protein C receptor (EPCR)+ Lin- CD150+ CD48- cells (Figure 1—figure supplement 1C) with high stem cell activity after 5-FU administration (Umemoto et al., 2022). We observed a transient decrease in the number of quiescent HSCs (Ki67-) and an increase in the number of cell-cycling HSCs (Ki67+) on day 6 after 5-FU treatment (Figure 1—figure supplement 1D). Along with the loss of cell quiescence, ATP concentration in HSCs decreased transiently on day 6 (Figure 1—figure supplement 1E). Because the route of administration of 5-FU (intraperitoneal or intravenous) made no difference in the Ki67 positivity rate of HSCs (Figure 1—figure supplement 1F), we administered 5-FU intraperitoneally for remaining experiments. Two methods were used to test whether cell cycle progression of HSCs after 5-FU treatment depends on the expression of EPCR. First, phosphorylation of Rb (pRb), a marker of cell cycle progression (Miller et al., 2018), was analyzed in HSCs after 5-FU treatment. Analysis of EPCR+ and EPCR- HSCs showed increased pRb in HSCs from 5-FU-treated mice in both fractions compared to HSCs from phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)-treated mice, regardless of EPCR expression (Figure 1—figure supplement 1G–H). Second, we used a G0 marker mouse line (Fukushima et al., 2019). These mice expressed a fusion protein of the p27 inactivation mutant p27K- and the fluorescent protein mVenus (G0 marker), allowing prospective identification of G0 cells. We tested whether the expression of G0 marker in HSCs was altered after 5-FU administration to the G0 marker mice (Figure 1—figure supplement 1I) and found that 5-FU treatment reduced the frequency of G0 marker-positive HSCs, regardless of the EPCR expression (Figure 1—figure supplement 1J–K). This was not observed in the PBS group. These results indicated that 5-FU administration induced cell cycle progression of entire HSCs in mice.

HSC cell cycling is preceded by the activation of intracellular ATP-related pathways that metabolize extracellular nutrients, including glucose (Ito et al., 2012; Karigane et al., 2016), which are utilized in both ATP-producing and -consuming pathways, determining cellular ATP levels. Therefore, we examined the metabolic flux of glucose by performing in vitro IC-MS tracer analysis with uniformly carbon-labeled (U-13C6) glucose to determine the pathways driving changes in ATP in 5-FU-treated HSCs (Figure 1A; Supplementary file 2). To avoid metabolite changes, samples were continuously chilled on ice during cell preparation, and the process from euthanasia to cell preparation was performed in the shortest possible time (see ‘Preparation and storage of in vitro U-13C6-glucose tracer samples’ section under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information). We found that changes in metabolite levels before and after sorting were present but limited (Figure 1—figure supplement 2A). This result is consistent with the finding that the cell purification process does not significantly affect metabolite levels when sufficient care is taken in cell preparation (Jun et al., 2021). In 5-FU-treated HSCs, the levels of glycolytic metabolites derived from U-13C6-glucose were double those observed in PBS-treated HSCs (Figure 1B–C; Figure 1—figure supplement 2B). The total levels of TCA cycle intermediates derived from U-13C6-glucose were similar between PBS- and 5-FU-treated cells (Figure 1D; Figure 1—figure supplement 2B). Levels of U-13C6-glucose-derived intermediates involved in the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) and nucleic acid synthesis (NAS) were twofold higher in 5-FU-treated than in PBS-treated HSCs, whereas no significant differences in the levels of metabolites were observed between both groups (Figure 1E–F; Figure 1—figure supplement 2B). Notably, the labeling rate of metabolites during the first half of glycolysis was almost 100% in both groups, allowing us to easily track the labeled metabolites (Figure 1—figure supplement 2C–E). This was thought to be due to the rapid replacement of unlabeled metabolites with labeled metabolites during exposure to U-13C6-glucose because of the generally rapid glycolytic reaction. Conversely, the labeling rate of TCA cycle intermediates was consistently lower than that of glycolysis and PPP (Figure 1—figure supplement 2D), suggesting that PBS- and 5-FU-treated HSCs prefer anaerobic glycolysis over aerobic glycolysis. To directly compare the metabolic systems of PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs, we conducted a Mito stress test using a Seahorse flux analyzer. Compared to PBS-treated HSCs, 5-FU-treated HSCs exhibited a higher extracellular acidification rate (ECAR), while their oxygen consumption rate (OCR) remained equal to that of PBS-treated HSCs (Figure 1G–H; Figure 1—figure supplement 3A–B). After oligomycin treatment, PBS- and 5-FU-treated HSCs showed an increase in ECAR, suggesting a flexible activation of glycolysis upon OXPHOS inhibition (Figure 1G; Figure 1—figure supplement 3A). Meanwhile, a decrease in OCR was more clearly observed in the 5-FU-treated HSCs (Figure 1H; Figure 1—figure supplement 3B). Next, we evaluated whether glucose uptake in HSCs after 5-FU administration was differentially affected by the expression of EPCR. The fluorescent analog of glucose, 2-(N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)amino)–2-deoxyglucose (2-NBDG), was administered intravenously to mice (Jun et al., 2021) and its uptake in EPCR+ and EPCR- HSCs was assayed (Figure 1I). Regardless of the EPCR expression, the 2-NBDG uptake was greater in HSCs treated with 5-FU than in those treated with PBS (Figure 1J–L). Increased 2-NBDG uptake in 5-FU-treated HSCs was also observed in an in vitro 2-NBDG assay (Figure 1—figure supplement 1L). Notably, even in the PBS-treated group, HSCs with high NBDG uptake were more proliferative than those with low NBDG uptake, similar to the state of HSCs after 5-FU administration (Figure 1—figure supplement 1M). After 5-FU administration, there was an overall shift of the population from the G0 to G1 phase and a correlation between NBDG uptake and cell cycle progression was also observed (Figure 1—figure supplement 1M). In both PBS- and 5-FU-treated groups, the marked variation in glucose utilization depending on the cell cycle suggests a direct link between HSC proliferation and increased glycolytic activity. Furthermore, compared to HSCs cultured under the quiescence-maintaining conditions of HSC achieved by hypoxia, abundant fatty acids, and low cytokines as we previously reported (Kobayashi et al., 2019), HSCs cultured under cytokine-rich proliferative conditions were more resistant to the inhibition of OXPHOS by oligomycin (Figure 1—figure supplement 1N; Supplementary file 1). Overall, the results showed that 5-FU-treated HSCs exhibited activated glycolytic flux, increasing the turnover of ATP. Moreover, glycolytic flux into mitochondria was equally unchanged in PBS- and 5-FU-treated-HSCs, supporting that 5-FU activated anaerobic glycolysis in HSCs.

Figure 1. HSC cell cycling increases overall glycolytic flux, but not flux into mitochondria.

(A) Experimental design used for glucose isotope tracer analysis in HSCs from 5-FU- or PBS-treated mice. (B) Heat map of metabolite levels in HSCs derived from mice treated with PBS or 5-FU. (C–F) The semi-quantitative value (10–6 µM) of U-13C6-glucose-derived metabolites in glycolysis (C), the first round of TCA cycle (D), the PPP, and nucleotide synthesis (F) in HSCs from 5-FU- or PBS-treated mice (PBS group = 1.0); In (B-F), biological replicates from the PBS and 5-FU groups, obtained on three separate days, were pooled, analyzed by IC-MS, quantified based on calibration curve data for each metabolite (see ‘Ion chromatography mass spectrometry (IC-MS) analysis’ section in ‘Materials and methods’ for details). (G–H) A Mito Stress test with the Seahorse flux analyzer on HSCs derived from mice treated with PBS or 5-FU; ECAR (G) and OCR (H) before and after oligomycin treatment. (Data were obtained from n=7 technical replicates for PBS-treated HSCs and n=6 for 5-FU-treated HSCs.) (I) Experimental schema of in vivo 2-NBDG analysis. (J) Representative histograms of 2-NBDG analysis (gray: no 2-NBDG, red: PBS group, blue: 5-FU group). (K) 2-NBDG positivity in each fraction; data represent four pooled biological replicates for the PBS group and three for the 5-FU group; MyP: myeloid progenitor. (L) EPCR expression and 2-NBDG positivity within HSC fractions. Data were extracted from each individual in (K). Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by Student’s t-test (C–F, G–H when comparing the PBS and 5-FU groups, and K–L) or paired-samples t-test (G–H when comparing the conditions before and after exposure to oligomycin within the PBS/5-FU group). Abbreviations: G6P, glucose-6-phosphate; F6P, fructose-6-phosphate; F1,6BP, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate; G3P, glycerol-3-phosphate; DHAP, dihydroxyacetone phosphate; 3 PG, 3-phosphoglycerate; 2 PG, 2-phosphoglycerate; PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate; PYR, pyruvate; LAC, lactate; Ac-CoA; acetyl-CoA; CIT, citrate; ACO, cis-aconitic acid, isocitrate; 2OG, 2-oxoglutarate; SUC, succinate; FUM, fumarate; MAL, malate; OAA, oxaloacetate; 6 PG, 6-phosphogluconate; Ru5P, ribulose-5-phosphate; Xu5P, xylulose-5-phosphate; R5P, ribose-5-phosphate; S7P, sedoheptulose-7-phosphate; E4P, erythrose-4-phosphate; PRPP, phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate; IMP, inosine monophosphate; ATP, adenosine triphosphate; GTP, guanine triphosphate; UMP, uridine monophosphate; UTP, uridine triphosphate; TTP, thymidine triphosphate. See also Figure 1—figure supplements 13.

Figure 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1B–H, K and L.

Figure 1.

Figure 1—figure supplement 1. Dependence on glycolysis increases with cell cycle progression of HSCs.

Figure 1—figure supplement 1.

(A) Schematic illustration of 5-FU administration and analysis. (B) Representative staining plot of BM cells derived from mice 5 d (day 6) after treatment with PBS or 5-FU (day 1); note the gating of c-Kit high-dim cells in the LSK staining. Because the same BMMNC counts were obtained for each group, the Flt3-negative gated dot plot (bottom-right) for the 5-FU group appears to show an increase in the HSC fraction. (C) Contour plot of c-Kit expression in Lin-Sca-1+EPCR+CD150+CD48- cells from mice five days after PBS or 5-FU administration. (D) Frequency of Ki67-positive and -negative HSCs after 5-FU administration. n=5 biological replicates for each group. (E) Changes in ATP concentration in HSCs after 5-FU administration (n>70 single HSCs for each group). Data are representative results of pooled samples of two biological replicates. (F) Ki-67 positivity in HSCs by route of 5-FU administration (i.p. or i.v.). n=4 biological replicates for each group. (G–H) Intracellular staining of pRb in EPCR+ or EPCR- HSCs derived from PBS- or 5-FU-treated mice. Representative plot of pRb and DNA content in EPCR+ HSCs from both groups (G). Summary of results (H). n=3 biological replicates for each group. (I–K) Analysis of mVenus-p27K- mice treated with PBS or 5-FU. Experimental schema (I). Representative G0 marker distribution in HSC in PBS (blue) or 5-FU (red) groups (J). Percentage of G0 marker-positive cells in total HSCs and EPCR+ or EPCR- HSCs in PBS (blue bars) or 5-FU group (red bars) (K). n=4–5 biological replicates for each group. The data for each panel is extracted from the same individual. (L) In vitro 2-NBDG assay. cyto: cytochalasin, phlo: phloretin. n=3 biological replicates for each group. (M) In vivo administration of 2-NBDG followed by the Ki67/Hoechst 33432 staining of HSCs. n=6 biological replicates for each group. (N) Relative percentage of HSCs remaining after culture under quiescence-maintaining or proliferative conditions in the presence of oligomycin. HSC number for the control (Ctl) vehicle (DMSO)-treated group was set to 100%; n=4 technical replicates for each group. The data are representative results from three independent experiments. (See ‘MACSQuant analysis of cell number’ under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information.). Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using Student’s t-test (H, K, N) or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (D–F, and L–M).
Figure 1—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1—figure supplement 1D–F, H, K-N.
Figure 1—figure supplement 2. Quantified metabolite pool in HSCs under quiescence, proliferation, or OXPHOS-inhibition.

Figure 1—figure supplement 2.

(A) Comparison of metabolite levels in c-Kit enriched cells pre- and post-sorting. n=3 biological replicates for each group. ND: not detected. (B) Metabolic overview of U-13C6-glucose tracing among pathways related to glycolysis, PPP, NAS, and the TCA cycle in HSCs from 5-FU- (blue) or PBS-treated (red) mice, and DMSO- (black) or oligomycin (Oligo)-treated (orange) HSCs. Fates of carbons derived from U-13C6-glucose in each metabolite are shown as yellow circles. Each graph indicates relative amounts of U-13C6-glucose-derived metabolites. (C–E) Ratio of U-13C6-glucose-labelled to non-labelled metabolites in glycolysis (C), the first round of the TCA cycle (D), and the PPP plus nucleic acid synthesis (E) in PBS- (red bars) and 5-FU-treated (blue bars) HSCs. (F–H) Ratio of U-13C6-glucose-labelled to non-labelled metabolites in glycolysis (F), the first round of the TCA cycle (G), and the PPP plus nucleic acid synthesis (H) in HSCs treated with vehicle (black bars) or oligomycin (orange bars). In (B–H), data are extracted from three biological replicates for HSCs derived from PBS- or 5-FU-treated mice and from four for HSCs after DMSO or oligomycin treatment. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using two-way ANOVA with Sidak’s test (A) and Student’s t-test (B) by comparing PBS and 5-FU groups or DMSO and oligomycin groups. Abbreviations: G6P, glucose-6-phosphate; F6P, fructose-6-phosphate; F1,6BP, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate; G3P, glycerol-3-phosphate; DHAP, dihydroxyacetone phosphate; 3 PG, 3-phosphoglycerate; 2 PG, 2-phosphoglycerate; PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate; PYR, pyruvate; LAC, lactate; Ac-CoA; acetyl-CoA; CIT, citrate; ACO, cis-aconitic acid, isocitrate; 2OG, 2-oxoglutarate; SUC, succinate; FUM, fumarate; MAL, malate; OAA, oxaloacetate; 6 PG, 6-phosphogluconate; Ru5P, ribulose-5-phosphate; Xu5P, xylulose-5-phosphate; R5P, ribose-5-phosphate; S7P, sedoheptulose-7-phosphate; E4P, erythrose-4-phosphate; PRPP, phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate; IMP, inosine monophosphate; ATP, adenosine triphosphate; GTP, guanine triphosphate; UMP, uridine monophosphate; UTP, uridine triphosphate; TTP, thymidine triphosphate.
Figure 1—figure supplement 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1—figure supplement 2A–H.
Figure 1—figure supplement 3. Mito Stress test results using the Seahorse flux analyzer.

Figure 1—figure supplement 3.

(A–D) Overview of the Mito Stress test on the Seahorse flux analyzer for PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs (A) ECAR, (B) OCR and HSCs or MyPs (C) ECAR, (D) OCR.
Figure 1—figure supplement 3—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1—figure supplement 3A–D.

OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs exhibit compensatory glycolytic flux

Previous studies using mouse models of mitochondrial disease or defects in genes involved in electron transport chain and OXPHOS suggest that mitochondrial energy production is essential for maintaining HSC function (Ansó et al., 2017; Inoue et al., 2010; Yu et al., 2013; Bejarano-García et al., 2016), as is the glycolytic system. However, there have been no quantitative reports on how OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs can adapt their metabolism. To understand HSC metabolism under OXPHOS inhibition, we performed in vitro U-13C6-glucose tracer analysis of oligomycin-treated HSCs (Figure 2A; Supplementary file 3). Similar to 5-FU-treated HSCs (Figure 1), oligomycin-treated HSCs exhibited glycolytic system activation (Figure 2B–C; Figure 1—figure supplement 2B). Metabolite flux to the TCA cycle and PPP was unchanged, but flux to the NAS was significantly reduced in oligomycin-treated HSCs compared to that in steady-state HSCs (Figure 2D–F; Figure 1—figure supplement 2B). The results suggested that OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs activated compensatory glycolytic flux and suppressed NAS flux. As with 5-FU-treated HSCs, analysis of oligomycin-treated HSCs also showed almost 100% labeling of metabolites in the first half of glycolysis (Figure 1—figure supplement 2F–H), allowing us to easily track the labeled metabolites. To further validate the compensatory glycolytic activation of HSCs under OXPHOS inhibition, a Mito Stress test was performed on HSCs and other differentiated myeloid progenitors (MyPs, Lin-Sca-1-c-Kit+ (LKS-) cells). The results showed that ECAR were elevated in HSCs after oligomycin treatment compared to before oligomycin treatment (Figure 2G; Figure 1—figure supplement 3C). No increase in ECAR was observed in MyPs (Figure 2G; Figure 1—figure supplement 3C), supporting that inhibition of OXPHOS activated anaerobic glycolysis specifically in HSCs. Meanwhile, in HSCs, the decrease in OCR after oligomycin administration was less evident compared to MyPs (Figure 2H; Figure 1—figure supplement 3D). In MyPs, both ECAR and OCR were downregulated (Figure 2G–H; Figure 1—figure supplement 3C–D).

Figure 2. OXPHOS inhibition activates compensatory glycolysis in HSCs.

Figure 2.

(A) Experimental design used for glucose isotope tracer analysis in HSCs treated with the OXPHOS inhibitor oligomycin. (B) Heat map of metabolite levels detected by in vitro tracer analysis of U-13C6-glucose in HSCs treated with DMSO or oligomycin (Oligo). (C–F) Relative amounts of U-13C6-glucose-derived metabolites in glycolysis (C), the first round of TCA cycle (D), the PPP(E), and nucleotide synthesis (F) in DMSO- (black) or oligomycin-treated (orange) HSCs; In (B-F), biological replicates of the DMSO and oligomycin groups obtained on four separate days were pooled, analyzed by IC-MS, and quantified based on calibration curve data for each metabolite (see ‘Ion chromatography mass spectrometry (IC-MS) analysis’ section in ‘Materials and methods’ for details). (G–H) Mito Stress test on the Seahorse flux analyzer for HSC and MyPs; ECAR (G) and OCR (H) before and after oligomycin treatment. (Data were obtained from n=3 technical replicates for HSCs and n=10 technical replicates for MyPs.). Data are shown as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by paired-samples t-test (C-E and G–H). Abbreviations: G6P, glucose-6-phosphate; F6P, fructose-6-phosphate; F1,6BP, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate; G3P, glycerol-3-phosphate; DHAP, dihydroxyacetone phosphate; 3 PG, 3-phosphoglycerate; 2 PG, 2-phosphoglycerate; PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate; PYR, pyruvate; LAC, lactate; Ac-CoA; acetyl-CoA; CIT, citrate; ACO, cis-aconitic acid, isocitrate; 2OG, 2-oxoglutarate; SUC, succinate; FUM, fumarate; MAL, malate; OAA, oxaloacetate; 6 PG, 6-phosphogluconate; Ru5P, ribulose-5-phosphate; Xu5P, xylulose-5-phosphate; R5P, ribose-5-phosphate; S7P, sedoheptulose-7-phosphate; E4P, erythrose-4-phosphate; PRPP, phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate; IMP, inosine monophosphate; ATP, adenosine triphosphate; GTP, guanine triphosphate; UMP, uridine monophosphate; UTP, uridine triphosphate; TTP, thymidine triphosphate. See also Figure 1—figure supplements 13.

Figure 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 2B–H.

Phosphofructokinase (PFK) metabolism in HSCs is activated during proliferation and OXPHOS inhibition

To investigate whether glycolytic activation in HSCs after 5-FU treatment and OXPHOS inhibition could be demonstrated through unbiased mathematical simulations, we performed quantitative 13C metabolic flux analysis (13C-MFA). After generating a metabolic model for isotope labeling enrichment and setting appropriate lactate efflux values, a simulation was conducted using the labeled metabolite abundance data obtained from isotope tracer analysis. The appropriate lactate efflux for quiescent HSC (PBS-treated HSC) was determined to 65 after experimenting with values from 0 to 100. The lactate efflux of 5-FU- or oligomycin-treated HSCs was higher than that of quiescent HSCs based on the observation that labeled glycolytic metabolite levels were particularly elevated in in vitro tracer analysis (see ‘Quantitative 13C-MFA with OpenMebius’ under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information). As a result, the variation in the flux values of all enzymatic reactions calculated in HSCs after 5-FU or oligomycin treatment became smaller compared to quiescent HSCs, suggesting that HSCs strictly regulated their metabolism in response to stress (Figure 3—figure supplement 1A–C). Unlike PBS-treated HSCs, those treated with 5-FU or oligomycin exhibited preferential glycolytic activation rather than TCA- or PPP-based metabolic strategies; the first half of the glycolytic system appeared to be the site of metabolic activation (Figure 3A–J; Figure 3—figure supplement 1D–U, Supplementary file 4). This increase in metabolic flux upstream of the glycolytic pathway was also supported by our in vitro tracer analysis (Figure 1B and Figure 2B), suggesting that 13C-MFA was a valid metabolic simulation. Among the reactions in the first half of glycolysis, phosphorylation of fructose 6-phosphate (F6P) by PFK is the irreversible and rate-limiting reaction (Dunaway, 1983). A detailed review of in vitro isotope tracer analysis results showed that the ratio of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate (F1,6BP; the product of PFK) to F6P (the substrate of PFK) was greatly elevated in HSCs during proliferation and OXPHOS inhibition (Figure 3K–L). Together with the results of quantitative 13C-MFA, these findings suggested that HSCs exhibit elevated glycolytic flux relative to mitochondrial activity by increasing PFK enzyme activity under various stress conditions.

Figure 3. Quantitative 13C-MFA of quiescent, proliferative, and stressed HSCs.

(A–C) Overview of quantitative 13C-MFA of PBS-treated HSCs (A), 5-FU-treated HSCs (B), and OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs (C). The representative net flux for each reaction with glucose uptake as 100 is shown in the squares below the catalytic enzymes for each reaction listed in green letters. Red arrows indicate reactions with particularly elevated fluxes and blue arrows indicate reactions with particularly decreased fluxes. (D) Heatmap of the relative flux of each enzyme in the 5-FU or oligomycin groups compared to that in the quiescent (Ctl) HSC (The metabolic flux of each enzyme in the Ctl group was standardized as 100.). (E–J) Fluxes due to reactions with PFK (E, H), G6PD (F, I), and PDH (G, J). Fluxes of HSCs derived from mice treated with 5-FU (blue bars) or PBS (red bars) (D–F) and of HSCs treated with DMSO (black bars) or oligomycin (orange bars) (G–I) are shown. Data is obtained from 100 simulations in OpenMebius, and flux data for each enzyme is displayed (Supplementary file 4). (K–L) Ratio of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate (F1,6BP) to fructose-6-phosphate (F6P) calculated from tracer experiments shown in Figure 1B and Figure 2B. Effects of 5-FU administration (K) or mitochondrial inhibition by oligomycin (L) are summarized. Data are shown as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by Student’s t-test (E–L). Abbreviations: HK, hexokinase; PGI, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase; PFK, phosphofructokinase; TPI, triose phosphate isomerase; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase; PGM, phosphoglycerate mutase; PK, pyruvate kinase; LDH, lactate dehydrogenase; PC, pyruvate carboxylase; PDH, pyruvate dehydrogenase; CS; citrate synthase; IDH, isocitrate dehydrogenase; αKGDH, α-ketoglutaric acid dehydrogenase; SDH, succinate dehydrogenase; G6PD, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase; TAL, transaldolase. See also Figure 3—figure supplements 12.

Figure 3—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 3D–L.

Figure 3.

Figure 3—figure supplement 1. Quantitative 13C-MFA of HSCs under quiescence, proliferation, and OXPHOS inhibition.

Figure 3—figure supplement 1.

(A–C) Enzyme reaction flux values for each simulation (100 times in total) in PBS-treated (A), 5-FU-treated (B), and OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs (C). Flux values calculated in the same simulation are connected by lines; note the small variation in flux values calculated in different simulations in 5-FU-treated (B) or OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs (C) compared to that in PBS-treated HSCs (A). (D–U) Fluxes of each reaction determined using quantitative 13C-MFA in HSCs from mice treated with 5-FU (blue bars) or PBS (red bars) (D–L), or in HSCs after treatment with vehicle (black bars) or oligomycin (orange bars) (M–U). The net flux was calculated when the glucose uptake was set at 100. The name of the enzyme catalyzing each reaction is listed above the graph. Each gray dot represents the estimated flux obtained from 100 mathematical simulations. (See ‘Quantitative 13C-MFA with OpenMebius’ under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information.). Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using Student’s t-test (D–U). Abbreviations: HK, hexokinase; PGI, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase; PFK, phosphofructokinase; TPI, triose phosphate isomerase; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase; PGM, phosphoglycerate mutase; PK, pyruvate kinase; LDH, lactate dehydrogenase; PC, pyruvate carboxylase; PDH, pyruvate dehydrogenase; CS; citrate synthase; IDH, isocitrate dehydrogenase; αKGDH, α-ketoglutaric acid dehydrogenase; SDH, succinate dehydrogenase; G6PD, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase; TAL, transaldolase.
Figure 3—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 3—figure supplement 1D–U.
Figure 3—figure supplement 2. Quantified metabolite pool in HSCs from PBS- or 5-FU-treated mice.

Figure 3—figure supplement 2.

(A) Experimental schema. (B–D) Heat maps of the glycolytic system (B), TCA cycle (C), PPP and NAS and glutathione labeling rates (D). (E–I) Labeling rates of Asp M+2 (E), Glu M+2 (F), IMP M+5 (G), ATP M+5 (H), and reduced glutathione M+2 (I) in PBS- (blue bars) or 5-FU-treated HSCs (red bars). (J) Percentage of total 13C-labeled metabolite mass of glycolysis, TCA cycle, PPP, and NAS detected in PBS-treated or 5-FU-treated HSCs. HSCs derived from one or two mice in the PBS group and two or three mice in the 5-FU group were pooled. n=4 biological replicates for each group. (See ‘Preparation and storage of in vivo U-13C6-glucose tracer samples’ in ‘Materials and methods’ for details.) Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using Student’s t-test (E–J). Abbreviations: G6P, glucose-6-phosphate; F6P, fructose-6-phosphate; F1,6BP, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate; G3P, glycerol-3-phosphate; DHAP, dihydroxyacetone phosphate; 3 PG, 3-phosphoglycerate; 2 PG, 2-phosphoglycerate; PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate; PYR, pyruvate; LAC, lactate; CIT, citrate; ISOCIT, isocitrate; 2OG, 2-oxoglutarate; SUC, succinate; FUM, fumarate; MAL, malate; 6 PG, 6-phosphogluconate; Ru5P, ribulose-5-phosphate; Xu5P, xylulose-5-phosphate; R5P, ribose-5-phosphate; S7P, sedoheptulose-7-phosphate; PRPP, phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate; IMP, inosine monophosphate; ATP, adenosine triphosphate; Asp, Aspartic acid; Glu, Glutamate.
Figure 3—figure supplement 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 3—figure supplement 2B–J.

HSCs under stress exhibit activation of glycolysis-initiated TCA cycle and NAS

To investigate the long-term glucose utilization of HSCs, we performed an in vivo tracer analysis with U-13C6 glucose based on recent reports (DeVilbiss et al., 2021; Jun et al., 2021; Figure 3—figure supplement 2A; see ‘Preparation and storage of in vivo U-13C6-glucose tracer samples’ under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information). In HSCs from 5-FU-treated mice, we observed increased labeling of glycolytic metabolites such as dihydroxyacetone phosphate, glycerol-3-phosphate, and phosphoenolpyruvate, as well as NAS metabolites such as inosine monophosphate and ATP, and those derived from TCA cycle such as aspartic acid and glutamate, compared to HSCs from PBS-treated mice (Figure 3—figure supplement 2B–I, Supplementary file 5). When the amount of U-13C6-glucose-derived labeled metabolites in each pathway was calculated, more glucose-derived metabolites entered TCA cycle in the 5-FU-treated group than PBS-treated group (Figure 3—figure supplement 2J). Thus, although short-term (10–30 min) in vitro tracer analysis showed that HSCs exhibited more potent activation of anaerobic glycolysis than of other pathways in response to 5-FU administration, long-term (approximately 3 hr) labeling by in vivo tracer analysis revealed that glycolysis-initiated TCA cycle and NAS flux were activated in addition to enhanced anaerobic glycolysis. Importantly, despite differences in labeling times and supplementation of U-13C6 glucose metabolites from non-HSCs to HSCs in vivo, the activation of the glycolytic system was a common finding.

PFKFB3 accelerates glycolytic ATP production during HSC cell cycling

In vitro and in vivo tracer analysis results collectively suggested that the activation of glycolysis catalyzed by PFK may have been the starting point for the activation of the entire HSC metabolism. To analyze the contribution of PFK to ATP metabolism in steady-state or stressed HSCs, we needed to develop an experimental system that could measure the dynamics of ATP concentrations in HSCs in a non-destructive, real-time manner. To this end, we used knock-in GO-ATeam2 mice as a FRET-based biosensor of ATP concentration (see ‘Conversion of GO-ATeam2 fluorescence to ATP concentration’ under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information.). The number of bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNCs), as well as the frequency of HSCs (CD150+CD48-LSK) and other progenitor cells, in the bone marrow (BM) of GO-ATeam2+ mice were almost unchanged compared to C57BL/6J mice, except for a mild decrease in the Lin- fraction (Figure 4—figure supplement 1A–C). Using BMMNCs derived from GO-ATeam2+ mice, we developed a method to detect changes in ATP concentration with high temporal resolution when the activity of PFK was modulated (Figure 4—figure supplement 1D–F). To validate our methods, we measured ATP concentrations in HSCs and MyPs with or without various nutrients (see ‘Time-course analysis of FRET values’ under ‘Materials and methods’ for more information.). MyPs showed more rapid decreases in ATP concentration than HSCs, suggesting higher ATP consumption by progenitors (Figure 4—figure supplement 1G–H). Adding glucose to the medium suppressed this decrease in MyPs; however, other metabolites (e.g. pyruvate, lactate, and fatty acids) had minimal effects, suggesting that ATP levels are glycolysis-dependent in MyPs (Figure 4—figure supplement 1G–H), consistent with previous reports that the aerobic glycolytic enzyme M2 pyruvate kinase isoform (PKM2) is required for progenitor cell function (Wang et al., 2014).

Further, we analyzed ATP consumption and metabolic dependency of cell-cycling HSCs after 5-FU administration (Figure 4A). After inhibiting glycolysis using 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) with other mitochondrial substrates, 5-FU-treated HSCs showed more rapid decreases in ATP concentration than PBS-treated HSCs (Figure 4B–C). In contrast, OXPHOS inhibition by oligomycin without glucose or mitochondrial substrates decreased the ATP concentration to a similar extent in both 5-FU- and PBS-treated HSCs, although 5-FU-treated HSCs showed earlier ATP exhaustion (Figure 4D–E). These data suggest that 5-FU-treated-HSCs upregulated ATP production via glycolysis, rather than relying on mitochondria. Apoptosis assay revealed a slight increase in early apoptotic cells (annexin V+ propidium iodide [PI]-) after 2-DG treatment and a slight decrease in the number of viable cells (Annexin V- PI-) after oligomycin treatment, both to a very limited extent (approximately 5%) compared to the degree of ATP decrease, suggesting that the decrease in ATP after 2-DG or oligomycin treatment did not simply reflect cell death (Figure 4—figure supplement 1I). Importantly, no metabolic changes in glycolysis or OXPHOS were observed in HSCs without cell cycle progression after 5-FU administration (very early phase: day 3; late phase: day 15) (Figure 4—figure supplement 2A–H).

Figure 4. PFKFB3 activates the glycolytic system in proliferating HSCs.

(A) Experimental design used to conduct real-time ATP analysis of HSCs treated with 5-FU or PBS. PLFA medium containing mitochondrial substrates (pyruvate, lactate, fatty acids, and amino acids) but no glucose, was used for experiments with 2-DG; Ba-M containing neither mitochondrial substrates nor glucose was used for experiments with oligomycin, PFKFB3 inhibitor, or AMPK inhibitor. (B–E) Results of real-time ATP analysis of PBS- (red) or 5-FU-treated (blue) HSCs after treatment with 2-DG (B, D), oligomycin (C, E). (F) Normalized mRNA counts of PFKFB isozymes based on the RNA sequencing of HSCs. (G-J) Results of real-time ATP analysis of PBS- (red) or 5-FU-treated (blue) HSCs after treatment with PFKFB3 inhibitor (G, I), or AMPK inhibitor (H, J). Bar graphs show corrected ATP concentrations for the last 2 min (D) of (B), 6–7 min (E) of (C), or the last 1 min (I, J) of (G, H) for PFKFB3 and AMPK inhibitors, respectively. Each group represents at least 60 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. (see ‘Time-course analysis of FRET values’ in ‘Materials and methods’ for details of the correction method used to calculate ATP concentration.) Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by Student’s t-test (D, E, I, and J) or a one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (F). See also Figure 4—figure supplements 12.

Figure 4—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 4D–F, I and J.

Figure 4.

Figure 4—figure supplement 1. Establishment of a real-time ATP concentration analysis system using GO-ATeam2.

Figure 4—figure supplement 1.

(A) Representative plot of HSPC fractions from GO-ATeam2 +mice. The identified fractions are shown at the top of the graph and the upper gating of that fraction is shown in parentheses. (B–C) Number of BMMNCs derived from C57BL/6J and GO-ATeam2 mice (B) and percentage of each fraction present (C). (D) Schematic diagram showing effects of key metabolic pathways and regulators (orange) and their inhibitors (red). (E) Transformation of time-course plot of ATP concentration in individual HSCs from GO-ATeam2 mice (left) to a planar curve after fitting (right). (F) Time-course analysis of ATP concentration in HSCs from GO-ATeam2 mice in basal medium (Ba-M) without pre-saturation plus various indicated additives. (G–H) Effects of indicated metabolites on ATP concentration of HSCs (G) or MyPs (H) in Ba-M. (I) Apoptosis assay results for HSCs exposed to 2-DG (50 mM) or oligomycin (1 µM) for 10 min. n=3 biological replicates. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using Student’s t-test (B), two-way ANOVA with Sidak’s test (C), or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (I).
Figure 4—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 4—figure supplement 1B, C and I.
Figure 4—figure supplement 2. FAO is not active in proliferating HSCs.

Figure 4—figure supplement 2.

(A–H) Results of real-time ATP analysis of PBS- (red) or 5-FU-treated (blue) HSCs (two-days (A–D) or 14 days (E–H) after PBS/5-FU administration) after treatment with 2-DG (A, C, E, G) or oligomycin (B, D, F, H). Bar graphs show corrected ATP concentrations for the last 30 s of the analysis. Each group represents at least 28 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from two biological replicates. (see ‘Time-course analysis of FRET values’ in ‘Materials and methods’ for details on the correction method used to calculate the ATP concentration.) (I) Average amount of ATP per cell. The amount of ATP detected in the luciferase assay was divided by the number of HSCs used in the analysis. n=3 biological replicates for each group. (J–M) Results of the real-time ATP analysis of PBS- (J, K) or 5-FU-treated (L, M) HSCs after treatment with etomoxir (100 µM) and/or DON (2 mM). Bar graphs show corrected ATP concentrations for the last 1 min of the analysis. Each group represents at least 60 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from two biological replicates. (N) MFI of FAOBlue. As a negative control, HSCs were exposed to etomoxir (100 µM). (O–P) Effects of DMSO (Ctl, red line), DON (2 mM, blue lines), etomoxir (100 µM, green lines) on ATP in HSCs in the presence of 200 mg/dL glucose. Dashed lines are ATP concentrations with additional AZ PFKFB3 26. Data are presented as the mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using a Student’s t-test (C, D, G, H, and I), or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (K, M, N, and P).
Figure 4—figure supplement 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 4—figure supplement 2C, D, G-I, K, M, N and P.

PFK is allosterically activated by 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase (PFKFB). Among the four isozymes of mammalian PFKFB, PFKFB3 is the most favorable for PFK activation (Yalcin et al., 2009), and is the most highly expressed in HSCs (Figure 4F). Therefore, we investigated whether PFKFB3 contributes to glycolytic plasticity in HSCs during proliferation. When treated with the PFKFB3-specific inhibitor AZ PFKFB3 26 (Boyd et al., 2015), compared with HSCs from PBS-treated mice, HSCs from 5-FU-treated mice showed decreased ATP levels (Figure 4G, I; Figure 4—figure supplement 2I). Although AMPK activates PFKFB3 in other contexts (Marsin et al., 2002), AMPK inhibition by dorsomorphin did not alter ATP concentration in 5-FU-treated-HSCs (Figure 4H and J).

Finally, we investigated the nutrients that drive OXPHOS in PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs. Exposure of PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs to either etomoxir, a FAO inhibitor, or 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON), a glutaminolysis inhibitor, alone or in combination, did not decrease ATP concentrations (Figure 4—figure supplement 2J–M). Subsequent assessment of FAO activity using FAOBlue, a fluorescent probe for the FAO activity assay (Uchinomiya et al., 2020,) showed no significant differences between PBS- and 5-FU-treated HSCs (Figure 4—figure supplement 2N). Thus, neither FAO nor glutaminolysis appeared to be essential for the short-term maintenance of ATP levels in cell-cycling HSCs after 5-FU administration. Notably, the addition of glucose and a PFKFB3 inhibitor to etomoxir rapidly reduced ATP concentrations in HSCs (Figure 4—figure supplement 2O–P). This suggests that etomoxir may partially mimic the effects of oligomycin, indicating that OXPHOS is primarily driven by FAO, but can be compensated by PFKFB3-accelerated glycolysis in HSCs. Conversely, exposure of HSCs to DON in combination with a PFKFB3 inhibitor did not decrease ATP concentrations (Figure 4—figure supplement 2O–P), suggesting that ATP production via glutaminolysis is limited in HSCs.

OXPHOS inhibition accelerates glycolysis to sustain ATP levels in HSCs, but not in progenitors

To assess differences in metabolic dependence between steady-state or stressed HSCs and naturally proliferating HPCs, we altered ATP metabolism in HSCs and progenitors using 2-DG or oligomycin (Figure 5A). Oligomycin treatment rapidly depleted ATP in HSCs and all HPC fractions (green lines in Figure 5B–C; Figure 5—figure supplement 1A–D). Treatment with 2-DG decreased ATP concentrations for a short amount of time (~12 min) in HSCs and HPCs, but ATP reduction was less evident than that induced by oligomycin (blue lines in Figure 5B–C; Figure 5—figure supplement 1A–D). The ATP reduction induced by 2-DG treatment was particularly low (~15%) in HSCs, multipotent progenitor cells (MPPs), and common lymphoid progenitors (CLPs) relative to that in common myeloid progenitors (CMPs), granulocytes-macrophage progenitors (GMPs), and megakaryocyte-erythrocyte progenitors (MEPs; Figure 5D).

Figure 5. PFKFB3 accelerates glycolysis in HSCs under OXPHOS inhibition in an AMPK-dependent manner.

(A) Experimental design of real-time ATP analysis using GO-ATeam2 knock-in BMMNCs. Ba-M was used in experiments with oligomycin. For other experiments, PLFA medium was used. (B–C) Evaluation of factors affecting ATP concentration in HSCs (B) and GMPs (C) based on the GO-ATeam2 system. GO-ATeam2 knock-in BMMNCs were incubated with glucose, oligomycin, 2-DG, or glucose plus oligomycin, and the FRET/EGFP ratio was calculated. (D) ATP concentration in indicated stem/progenitor fractions in PLFA medium (red bars) alone or PLFA medium plus 2-DG (blue bars). ATP concentration for the last 2 min of the analysis time is shown. Data is summarized from (B, C) and Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Each group represents at least 110 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. (E) ATP concentration in indicated stem/progenitor fractions in Ba-M plus glucose (dark blue bars) or Ba-M plus glucose and oligomycin (orange bars). ATP concentration for the last 1 min of the analysis period is shown. Data is summarized from (B, C) and Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Each group represents at least 43 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. (F–I) Effects of PFKFB3 or AMPK inhibitors (PFKFB3i or AMPKi, respectively) on ATP concentration in HSCs from GO-ATeam2 mice in Ba-M plus glucose only (F) or Ba-M plus glucose and oligomycin (G). ATP concentrations for the last 1 min of the analysis period are shown in (H) and (I) for glucose only and glucose with oligomycin groups, respectively. Each group represents at least 90 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. (J) Experimental schema for cell cycle assay and real-time ATP concentration analysis after overexpression of Pfkfb3. (K) Cell cycle status of Pfkfb3-overexpressing (Pfkfb3OE) and mock-transduced HSCs. (L–M) Effects of inhibitors on ATP concentration in Pfkfb3-overexpressing GO-ATeam2+ HSCs. Cells were exposed to vehicle or 2-DG (L), oligomycin in the presence or absence of glucose 12.5 mg/dL (M), and ATP concentrations for the last 2 min (L) or 1 min (M) of the analysis period were calculated. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by Student’s t-test (D, E, and K) or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (H, I, L, and M). See also Figure 5—figure supplement 1.

Figure 5—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 5D, E, H, I, K, L and M.
elife-87674-fig5-data1.xlsx (322.1KB, xlsx)

Figure 5.

Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Steady-state PFKFB3 activity defines HSC and HPC metabolic kinetics and cell cycle.

Figure 5—figure supplement 1.

(A–D) Evaluation of factors affecting ATP concentration in MPPs (A), MEPs (B), CMPs (C), and CLPs (D) based on the GO-ATeam2 system. GO-ATeam2-knock-in BMMNCs were incubated with glucose, oligomycin, 2-DG, or glucose plus oligomycin, and the FRET/EGFP ratio was calculated. (E) Effects of DMSO (Ctl, red line), oligomycin (1 µM, blue lines), FCCP (2 µM, green lines), and rotenone (1 µM, orange lines) on ATP in HSCs. Dashed lines are ATP concentrations with additional ddH2O and solid lines are ATP concentrations when 200 mg/dL glucose is added. (F) ATP concentration during the last 1 min in (E). Data are representative results for pooled samples of two biological replicates. (G) Effects of indicated concentrations of glucose (mg/dL) on ATP concentration in oligomycin-treated or control HSCs (left panel), or in MyPs (right panel) in PLFA medium. (H–K) Effects of inhibitors of PKM2 or LKB1 (PKM2i or LKB1i, respectively) on ATP concentration of HSCs from GO-ATeam2 mice in Ba-M with either glucose (Glc) or glucose plus oligomycin. ATP concentrations for the last 2 min of analysis time are summarized in (J) and (K), respectively. Each group represents at least 50 cells. Data are the result of one experiment. (L) Composition of adenine phosphates (AMP, ADP, and ATP) in HSCs treated with oligomycin (Oligo), or HSCs from 5-FU-treated mice (5-FU) and control HSCs (Ctl; no treatment or DMSO-treated). Data show results of tracer experiments shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. (M–P) Effects of a PFKFB3 inhibitor (PFKFB3i) on ATP concentration in GMPs (M), MEPs (N), CMPs (O), or CLPs (P) from GO-ATeam2 mice in Ba-M treated with glucose (Glc) plus vehicle (red lines), glucose plus PFKFB3i (blue lines), or glucose plus oligomycin plus PFKFB3i (green lines). (Q) ATP concentration in indicated progenitor fractions in Ba-M with vehicle (red bars) or PFKFB3 inhibitor (dark blue bars). ATP concentrations for the last 1 min of the analysis period are shown. Data is summarized from (M–P) . Each group represents at least 350 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples from two biological replicates. (R–U) Effects of inhibitors on ATP concentration in Pfkfb3-overexpressing GO-ATeam2+ HSCs. Cells were exposed to vehicle (Ctl) (R), 2-DG (S), oligomycin (T), or glucose 12.5 mg/dL and oligomycin (U). Data are representative results of pooled samples from two biological replicates. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using Student’s t-test (F, Q) or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (J–L).
Figure 5—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 5—figure supplement 1F,J-L, Q.

Next, we investigated the role of glycolysis in ATP production during OXPHOS inhibition by combining oligomycin administration and glucose supplementation. ATP concentration remained more stable in HSCs treated with oligomycin and glucose than in those treated only with oligomycin. Similar results were not seen in HPCs, indicating that HSCs have the plasticity to upregulate glycolytic ATP production to meet demands (orange lines in Figure 5B–C; Figure 5—figure supplement 1A–D, summarized in Figure 5E). Similar to oligomycin treatment, rotenone (complex I inhibitor) and carbonyl cyanide 4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone (FCCP, mitochondrial uncoupler) treatments, which inhibit OXPHOS-derived ATP production, also decreased ATP concentrations in HSCs, but not when administered simultaneously with glucose (Figure 5—figure supplement 1E–F). Furthermore, with oligomycin, HSCs, but not HPCs, maintained ATP concentrations at low glucose levels (50 mg/dL) (Figure 5—figure supplement 1G). These analyses suggest that ATP was produced by mitochondrial OXPHOS in steady-state HSCs, and that only HSCs, but not HPCs, maintained ATP production by glycolysis when OXPHOS was compromised.

PFKFB3 accelerates glycolytic ATP production during OXPHOS inhibition

Next, to understand whether PFKFB3 contributes to ATP production in HSCs under OXPHOS inhibition, we evaluated PFKFB3 function under OXPHOS inhibition using the GO-ATeam2+ BMMNCs. In oligomycin-treated HSCs, PFKFB3 inhibition led to rapidly decreased ATP concentration that was not observed in HSCs not treated with oligomycin (Figure 5F–I). We examined the effects of HSPC metabolic regulators on ATP levels in oligomycin-treated HSCs. Inhibiting PKM2, which accelerates glycolysis in steady-state progenitors (Wang et al., 2014), significantly reduced ATP levels in oligomycin-treated HSCs (Figure 5—figure supplement 1H, J). Inhibiting LKB1, a kinase upstream of AMPK (Hardie, 2014; Long and Zierath, 2006), did not affect the ATP concentration in oligomycin-treated HSCs (Figure 5—figure supplement 1I, K), whereas levels of adenosine monophosphate (AMP), which also activates AMPK, increased in oligomycin-treated but not in 5-FU-treated HSCs (Figure 5—figure supplement 1L). This may explain differences in AMPK-dependent ATP production between proliferative HSCs and HSCs under OXPHOS inhibition.

Next, we tested the effects of PFKFB3 on ATP concentration in HPCs. Unlike HSCs, HPCs exhibited PFKFB3-dependent ATP production, even without oligomycin (Figure 5—figure supplement 1M–Q). Therefore, ATP production in steady-state HSCs was PFKFB3-independent, and proliferative stimulation or OXPHOS inhibition plastically activated glycolytic ATP production in a PFKFB3-dependent manner to meet ATP demand.

PFKFB3 activity renders HSCs dependent on glycolysis

Next, we investigated whether PFKFB3 activity itself confers glycolytic dependence on HSCs. We retrovirally overexpressed Pfkfb3 in HSCs and performed cell cycle analysis (Figure 5J). Pfkfb3-overexpressed HSCs increased the proportion of cells in the S/G2/M phase and decreased the number of G0 cells compared to mock-overexpressed HSCs (Figure 5K). Next, we retrovirally overexpressed Pfkfb3 in GO-ATeam2+ HSCs and performed real-time ATP measurement (Figure 5J). Pfkfb3-overexpressing GO-ATeam2+ HSCs did not show changes in ATP concentrations relative to those in mock-transduced cells (Figure 5L; Figure 5—figure supplement 1R). Upon 2-DG treatment, Pfkfb3-overexpressing HSCs showed a greater decrease in ATP concentration than mock-transduced HSCs did (Figure 5L; Figure 5—figure supplement 1S). However, oligomycin treatment of both mock-transduced and Pfkfb3-overexpressing HSCs decreased ATP concentration to comparable levels (Figure 5M; Figure 5—figure supplement 1T). Notably, Pfkfb3-overexpressing HSCs recovered ATP levels more effectively under low glucose conditions (12.5 mg/dL) than did mock-transduced HSCs (Figure 5M; Figure 5—figure supplement 1U). These data suggest that PFKFB3 directly conferred glycolytic dependence onto HSCs by modulating the cell cycle and increasing their ATP-generating capacity via glycolysis under metabolic stress.

PFKFB3 methylation by PRMT1 supports ATP production by cell-cycling HSCs

Next, we investigated how 5-FU-treated-HSCs regulate PFKFB3 independently of AMPK (Figure 4G–J). PFKFB3 activity is regulated at multiple levels (Shi et al., 2017), and PFKFB3 transcript and protein levels in HSCs remained unchanged during 5-FU-induced cell cycling (Figure 6A–B). Phosphorylation can also regulate PFKFB3 activity (Marsin et al., 2002; Novellasdemunt et al., 2013; Okamura and Sakakibara, 1998); however, we observed no change in PFKFB3 phosphorylation in 5-FU-treated-HSCs (Figure 6C). Upon oligomycin exposure, PFKFB3 was phosphorylated by AMPK in the HSCs (Figure 6D). PFKFB3 is also methylated, and its activity is upregulated by protein arginine methyltransferase 1 (PRMT1; Yamamoto et al., 2014). We observed that Prmt1 expression increased in 5-FU-treated-HSCs relative to that in PBS-treated-HSCs (Figure 6E). Furthermore, PFKFB3 methylation was significantly induced in 5-FU-treated-HSCs than in PBS-treated-HSCs (Figure 6F). Treatment of HSCs with a PRMT1 inhibitor decreased PFKFB3 methylation (Figure 6G), suggesting that PRMT1 catalyzed PFKFB3 methylation. In contrast, the number of transcripts regulated by PRMT1 decreased or was unchanged (Figure 6—figure supplement 1), suggesting that the transcriptional regulatory function of PRMT1 is limited. To investigate whether glycolytic activity in HSCs was regulated by methylated-PFKFB3 (m-PFKFB3), mice treated with PBS or 5-FU were injected with 2-NBDG, and m-PFKFB3 levels in HSCs with high and low 2-NBDG uptake were quantified. Regardless of PBS or 5-FU treatment, HSCs with high 2-NBDG uptake exhibited higher m-PFKFB3 levels than those with low uptake (Figure 6H), suggesting that m-PFKFB3 regulated the activity of the glycolytic system in HSCs.

Figure 6. PFKFB3 methylation by PRMT1 enables ATP production by cell-cycling HSCs.

(A) Normalized Pfkfb3 mRNA counts based on RNA sequencing of PBS-treated (red) or 5-FU-treated (blue) HSCs. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. Data were extracted from the same pooled samples as in Figure 4J and Figure 6—figure supplement 1. (B) Quantification of mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of PFKFB3 protein in PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs. The lower part of the graph shows representative images of immunocytochemistry of PFKFB3 in each group. n=26–27 single HSCs for each group. The data are representative results from two independent experiments. (C) Quantification of MFI of phosphorylated-PFKFB3 (p-PFKFB3) protein in PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs. The lower part of the graph shows representative images of immunocytochemistry of p-PFKFB3 in each group. n=27 single HSCs for each group. The data are representative results from two independent experiments. (D) Quantification of MFI of p-PFKFB3 in HSCs treated with glucose (200 mg/dL); glucose plus oligomycin (1 µM); and glucose, oligomycin, and dorsomorphin (100 µM) for 5 min. The lower part of the graph shows representative images of immunocytochemistry of p-PFKFB3 in each group. n=32–36 for each group. The data are representative results from two independent experiments. (E) Normalized Prmt1 mRNA counts based on RNA sequencing of PBS-treated (red) or 5-FU-treated (blue) HSCs. Data are representative results of pooled samples from three biological replicates. (F) MFI quantification of methylated-PFKFB3 (m-PFKFB3) in PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs. The lower part of the graph shows representative images of immunocytochemistry of m-PFKFB3 in each group. n=23–41 for each group. The data are representative results from three independent experiments. (G) Quantification of MFI of m-PFKFB3 in PBS- or 5-FU-treated HSCs or 5-FU-treated HSCs after 15 min treatment with a PRMT1 inhibitor (90 μg/mL GSK3368715); n=25–35 single HSCs for each group. The lower part of the graph shows representative images showing immunocytochemistry of m-PFKFB3. Data represent a single experiment. (H) Quantitation of m-PFKFB3 in NBDG-positive or -negative HSCs in mice treated with PBS or 5-FU. The lower part of the graph shows representative images of immunocytochemistry of m-PFKFB3 in each group. n=28–41 for each group. The data are representative results from two independent experiments. (I) Corrected ATP levels in PBS- (red) or 5-FU-treated (blue) HSCs 15 min after treatment with vehicle or a PRMT1 inhibitor (90 µg/mL GSK3368715). Each group represents at least 101 cells. Data are representative results of pooled samples of two biological replicates. (see ‘Time-course analysis of FRET values’ in ‘Materials and methods’ for details of the correction method used to calculate ATP concentration.) (J) ATP concentration in mock-transduced (Ctl) or Pfkfb3-overexpressed (OE) HSCs after treatment with the PRMT1 inhibitor (90 µg/mL GSK3368715). ATP concentration for the last 1 min of the analysis period is shown. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by Student’s t-test (A-C, E-F, and I-J) or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (D, G, and H). See also Figure 6—figure supplement 1.

Figure 6—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 6A–J.

Figure 6.

Figure 6—figure supplement 1. Gene expression related to Prmt1 in proliferating HSCs.

Figure 6—figure supplement 1.

Data are presented as the mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using a Student’s t-test.
Figure 6—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 6—figure supplement 1.

Further, we analyzed the potential effects of PRMT1 inhibition on ATP concentration in GO-ATeam2+ HSCs. Treatment with the PRMT1 inhibitor significantly decreased ATP levels in 5-FU-treated-HSCs than in PBS-treated-HSCs (Figure 6I). In contrast, the retroviral overexpression of Pfkfb3 in GO-ATeam2+ HSCs abolished the effect of the PRMT1 inhibitor on ATP reduction (Figure 6J). These findings indicated that ATP levels in 5-FU-treated-HSCs were supported by PRMT1 methylation–mediated PFKFB3 activation.

PFKFB3 contributes to HSPC pool expansion and stress hematopoiesis maintenance

Finally, we analyzed PFKFB3 function in HSCs during hematopoiesis. We cultured HSCs with a PFKFB3 inhibitor in vitro under quiescence-maintaining or proliferative conditions (Figure 7—figure supplement 1A; Kobayashi et al., 2019). Cell count in HSC-derived colonies decreased following treatment with a PFKFB3 inhibitor under proliferative, but not quiescence-maintaining, conditions (Figure 7—figure supplement 1B).

We also knocked out Pfkfb3 in HSCs using the less toxic, vector-free CRISPR-Cas9 system and cultured the cells under quiescence-maintaining or proliferative conditions (Figure 7—figure supplement 1A) based on recent reports by Shiroshita et al., 2022. Again, cell numbers in Pfkfb3-knockout (KO) HSC–derived colonies decreased only in proliferative cultures when compared to control cultures (Rosa26-KO HSCs) (Figure 7—figure supplement 1C, E, F). We retrovirally overexpressed Pfkfb3 in HSCs and cultured them under quiescence maintenance or proliferative conditions (Figure 7—figure supplement 1A). Pfkfb3-overexpressing HSC colonies showed increased cell count compared to that of mock-transduced cells, but only under proliferative conditions (Figure 7—figure supplement 1D).

To assess PFKFB3 function in HSCs in vivo, we transplanted Pfkfb3-KO HSCs (Ly5.2+) or wild type (WT) control HSCs into lethally irradiated recipients (Ly5.1+) as well as Ly5.1+ competitor cells (Figure 7A), and the behavior of Pfkfb3-KO cells was evaluated by Sanger sequencing of peripheral blood (PB) cells (Shiroshita et al., 2022). In the KO group, donor-derived chimerism in PB cells decreased relative to that in the WT control group during the early phase (1 month post-transplant) but recovered thereafter (Figure 7B). Next, we retrovirally transduced Ly5.2+ HSCs with Pfkfb3 S461E (Pfkfb3CA), a constitutively active PFKFB3 mutant, and transplanted them into lethally irradiated recipients (Ly5.2+), along with Ly5.1+ competitor cells (Figure 7A, Figure 7—figure supplement 1G). Donor chimerism during the early post-transplant period in the Pfkfb3CA-overexpressing group was significantly higher than that in the mock-transduced group (Figure 7C). These findings suggest that PFKFB3 may play a role in the differentiation and proliferation of HSCs. Therefore, we compared the contribution of PFKFB3 to HSPC function at steady state and after myeloproliferative stimulation. Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO HSPCs were transplanted into recipients (Ly5.1+). After 2 months, recipients received 5-FU intraperitoneally, and the dynamics of Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO cell abundance in PB was assessed (Figure 7D). In PB cells prior to 5-FU administration, Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO HSPC-derived blood cells were almost equally present, suggesting a limited involvement of PFKFB3 in steady-state blood cell production (Figure 7E). However, after 5-FU administration, Pfkfb3-KO HSPC-derived blood cell abundance was reduced compared to that in the Rosa26-KO group (Figure 7E). This change occurred on day 6 after 5-FU administration (day 1), when the cell cycle of HSCs was activated (Figure 1—figure supplement 1D), supporting the idea that PFKFB3 contributes to HSC proliferation and differentiation into HSPCs.

Figure 7. PFKFB3 maintains HSC function under proliferative stress.

(A–C) Transplant analysis of Pfkfb3-KO or Pfkfb3CA-overexpressing HSCs. Experimental design (A). PB chimerism of donor-derived cells at 4 months post-transplant. Pfkfb3-KO group, n=6; Rosa26-KO group, n=4; (B) Pfkfb3 group, n=5; pMY-IRES-GFP group, n=4. (C) The data are representative results from two independent experiments. (D–E) 5-FU administration after bone marrow reconstruction with Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO HSPCs. Experimental schema (D). Behavior of the Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO cells in PB after 5-FU administration (E). n=5 for each group. (F–K) Cell cycle analysis and apoptosis assay of Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO HSPCs on day 2 post-BMT. Experimental schema (F). Representative plots of Ki67/Hoechst33432 staining of Rosa26-KO (G) or Pfkfb3-KO (H) HSPCs and summary of analysis (I); summary of in vivo BrdU labeling assay (J). Apoptosis assay results (K). n=4–5 biological replicates for each group. (L–N) Cell cycle analysis of Pfkfb3CA or Mock-overexpressing HSPCs on day 2 after BMT. Experimental Schema (L). Representative plot of Ki67/Hoechst33432 staining for both groups (M) and summary of analysis (N). n=5 biological replicates for each group. (O) Models showing ATP production and regulation in quiescent, OXPHOS-inhibited, and cell-cycling HSCs. Note that the GO-ATeam2 system identified plastic acceleration of glycolysis by PFKFB3 in response to different types of stress maintains ATP levels. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined by Student’s t-test (B, C, E, I-K, and N). See also Figure 7—figure supplement 1.

Figure 7—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 7B, C, E, I–K and N.

Figure 7.

Figure 7—figure supplement 1. PFKFB3 contributes to HSC proliferation and differentiation in vitro.

Figure 7—figure supplement 1.

(A–D) Effects of in vitro PFKFB3 inhibition, KO, or overexpression on HSCs. Experimental design (A). Number of cells in an HSC-derived colony following exposure to a PFKFB3 inhibitor (PFKFB3i) at indicated concentrations (B) or after Pfkfb3 KO by CRISPR-Cas9 (C); n=4 technical replicates for each group. Control groups were vehicle (DMSO)-treated (B) or CD45 KO (C). (D) In vitro effect of Pfkfb3-overexpression on HSCs. Number of cells in Pfkfb3-overexpressing or mock (pMY-IRES-GFP)-transduced HSC-derived colonies; n=4 technical replicates for each group. (B–D) are representative results of two or three independent experiments. (E–F) KO efficiency evaluated by sgRNA (E) or triple gRNA (F). The indel spectrum (horizontal axis) and the percentage of each indel (vertical axis) are shown. (G) qPCR results for Pfkfb3 expression in validation experiments of mock- (black bar) or Pfkfb3CA- (red bar) overexpression. n=4 technical replicates for each group. (H) Analysis of the homing efficiency and GFP+ blood cells in recipient BM 16 hr after the transplantation of Rosa26- or Pfkfb3-KO GFP+ HSPCs. Data are presented as mean ± SD. * p≤0.05, ** p≤0.01, *** p≤0.001 as determined using Student’s t-test (C, D, G, and H) or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test (B).
Figure 7—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 7—figure supplement 1B–D, G, H.

To investigate the mechanisms underlying the short-term effects of PFKFB3 on hematopoiesis after bone marrow transplantation (BMT), we evaluated cell cycle and apoptosis of Pfkfb3-KO or -overexpressing HSPCs on day 2 after BMT (Figure 7F). Cell cycle was analyzed by Ki67/Hoechst33432 staining and in vivo BrdU labeling (Jun et al., 2021), which showed that cell cycle progression was suppressed in Pfkfb3-KO HSPCs (Figure 7G–J). In contrast, Pfkfb3-KO cells did not show increased apoptotic rates or decreased homing efficiency after BMT (Figure 7K; Figure 7—figure supplement 1H). Furthermore, we examined the cell cycle of HSPCs overexpressing Pfkfb3CA on day 2 after BMT (Figure 7L) and found that Pfkfb3CA-overexpressing HSPCs showed accelerated cell cycle compared to mock-overexpressing HSPCs (Figure 7M–N). These data suggest that PFKFB3 contributes to HSC proliferation and differentiates cell production in in vitro and in vivo proliferative environments (cytokine stimulation and transplantation).

Discussion

In this study, by combining metabolomic tracing of U-13C6-labeled glucose and 13C-MFA, we quantitatively identified the metabolic programs used by HSCs during steady-state, cell-cycling, and OXPHOS inhibition. Under proliferative stress, HSCs uniformly shift from mitochondrial respiration to glycolytic ATP production and PPP activation, which represent hallmarks of cell-cycling mammalian cells (Intlekofer and Finley, 2019). Previous reports have emphasized the importance of glycolysis in maintaining HSC quiescence, but have primarily analyzed HSCs in transplant assays, wherein HSCs must enter the cell cycle (Takubo et al., 2013; Takubo et al., 2010). Prior analysis of repopulation capacity, which is positively correlated with enhanced glycolysis, may have overestimated glycolytic ATP production and overlooked mitochondrial ATP production during native hematopoiesis. In fact, some studies have suggested that OXPHOS activity is important for HSC maintenance and function (Ansó et al., 2017).

Our method was based on recently reported quantitative metabolic analysis techniques for very small numbers of cells (Qi et al., 2021; Agathocleous et al., 2017; DeVilbiss et al., 2021; Lengefeld et al., 2021; Schönberger et al., 2022; Jun et al., 2021), such as HSCs, and expands our knowledge of HSC metabolism during stress hematopoiesis. In our study, 5-FU administration in mice transiently decreased ATP concentration in HSCs in parallel with cell cycle progression, suggesting that HSC differentiation and cell cycle progression are closely related to intracellular metabolism and can be monitored by measuring ATP concentration. We mainly analyzed a mixture of EPCR+ and EPCR- HSCs, and we believe that the observed cell cycle progression and promotion of glycolysis in both EPCR+ and EPCR- HSCs support the validity of our claims (Figure 1L, Figure 1—figure supplement 1G–K). According to 13C-MFA enzymatic reaction flux of PFK in 5-FU-treated HSCs indicated a relative increase of approximately 10%. However, the flux value obtained by 13C-MFA was calculated with glucose uptake as 100. Thus, when combined with the overall increase in the glycolytic pool demonstrated by in vitro isotopic glucose tracer analysis and in vivo NBDG analysis, rapid acceleration of glycolysis becomes evident throughout the HSCs, including subpopulations that were less responsive to stress (Bowling et al., 2020; Fanti et al., 2023; Munz et al., 2023). These findings are consistent with reports suggesting that HSCs have relatively low biosynthetic activity (Signer et al., 2014; Essers et al., 2009) that is rapidly activated in response to cell proliferation stimuli (Karigane et al., 2016; Umemoto et al., 2018). Notably, we found that HSCs could accelerate glycolytic ATP production to fully compensate for mitochondrial ATP production under OXPHOS inhibition, a phenomenon that is difficult to identify without real-time ATP analysis. Thus, HSCs exposed to acute stresses choose to change the efficiency of glucose utilization (accelerated glycolytic ATP production) rather than other energy sources. In vivo, a completely glucose-deficient environment is improbable. Therefore, even under conditions such as hypoxia, where OXPHOS is inhibited, it is conceivable that glycolysis is accelerated to maintain ATP concentrations. Glucose tracer analysis showed NAS suppression under OXPHOS inhibition, leading to glycolysis without cell proliferation (Figure 2C–F; Figure 1—figure supplement 1N). This suppression can be attributed to several factors: phosphates derived from ATP are added to nucleotide mono-/di-phosphates during NAS; the primary source of ATP production, OXPHOS, is impaired; and the presence of enzymes, such as dihydroorotate dehydrogenase, which are conjugated with OXPHOS (Liu et al., 2000). Such multifactorial effects raise new questions about the relationship between OXPHOS and nucleotide synthesis. On the other hand, we observed that ATP production in steady-state or cell-cycling HSCs and in naturally proliferating HPCs depended more on mitochondrial OXPHOS than on glycolysis; inhibiting glycolysis in steady-state HSCs resulted in only mild ATP decreases, suggesting that OXPHOS is still the major source of ATP production even in a medium saturated with hypoxia mimicking the BM environment. The p50 value of mitochondria (the partial pressure of oxygen at which respiration is half maximal) is less than 0.1 kPa, corresponding to an oxygen concentration of less than 0.1% under atmospheric pressure (Gnaiger et al., 2000), suggesting that even under hypoxic conditions, OXPHOS can maintain some level of activity. Because FAO and the mitochondrial respiratory chain are necessary for HSC self-renewal and quiescence (Ansó et al., 2017; Bejarano-García et al., 2016; Ito et al., 2012; Kobayashi et al., 2019), fatty acids may support mitochondrial ATP production independently of fluxes from glycolysis. FAO and glutaminolysis were not immediately essential for ATP production in HSCs. Given reports on the long-term necessity of FAO and glutaminolysis for HSC maintenance (Ito et al., 2012; Oburoglu et al., 2014), ATP concentrations could be maintained in the short term by compensatory pathways. Furthermore, although glycolysis and TCA cycle are decoupled in steady-state HSCs, in response to cell cycle progression, anaerobic glycolytic metabolism in HSCs is enhanced (Figure 1) and fluxes to TCA cycle and PPP from the glycolytic system are also promoted (Figure 3—figure supplement 2). The degree of glycolysis and TCA cycle coupling observed by in vitro and in vivo tracer analysis differed, likely due to differences in labeling time (10–30 min in vitro and 3 hr in vivo). In particular, in vivo tracer analysis allows all cells to be capable of metabolizing U-13C6-glucose and providing its metabolites to HSCs, and there is a significant amount of time, approximately 120–180 min, after glucose labeling to purify HSCs. Metabolic reactions will continue during this time and subsequent processing on ice, which may increase the influx of labeled carbon into the TCA cycle. This complex dynamic in the in vivo tracer analysis makes it difficult to determine whether the labeled carbon influx is the result of direct influx from glycolysis or the re-uptake of metabolites by HSCs that have been processed by other cells. This is in contrast to in vitro analysis where such extended metabolic processing does not occur. Furthermore, despite an increased carbon influx into the TCA cycle in vivo, ATP production from mitochondria does not show a corresponding increase after 5-FU treatment, as shown by the GO-ATeam2 analysis shown in Figure 4C. Despite these technical differences, an essential common finding from both in vivo and in vitro analyses is the activation of glycolysis and nucleotide synthesis (NAS) in 5-FU-treated HSCs, highlighting critical metabolic changes in response to treatment. Moreover, these data provide direct evidence that glycolysis and TCA cycle become functionally uncoupled in quiescent HSCs (Takubo et al., 2013; Halvarsson et al., 2017). Our findings are also consistent with previous reports of OXPHOS activation associated with HSC proliferation (Takubo et al., 2013; Yu et al., 2013; Maryanovich et al., 2015; Ito et al., 2012). In other words, HSCs exhibit an increased proportion of anaerobic glycolysis–derived ATP by PFKFB3 upon proliferation and OXPHOS inhibition; furthermore, the glycolytic system is the starting point of metabolic activation and is indispensable for the overall enhancement of HSC metabolism (Figure 7H).

HPCs and leukemic cells accelerate glycolytic ATP production using PKM2 for differentiation and transformation, respectively Wang et al., 2014; however, we demonstrated that glycolytic acceleration does not fully compensate for mitochondrial ATP production in HPCs. Mechanistically, PFKFB3 increased glycolytic activity in HSCs to maintain ATP concentrations during proliferation and OXPHOS inhibition. Furthermore, inhibition of PFKFB3 in addition to OXPHOS does not result in a complete loss of ATP in HSCs, suggesting the robustness of HSC metabolism (Figure 5G). Under steady-state conditions, naturally proliferating HPCs rely on PFKFB3 for ATP production, whereas HSCs do not. This may explain the reduction of ECAR after oligomycin treatment in MyPs as shown by the Mito stress test (Figure 2G). In other words, while PFKFB3-dependent active glycolysis and mitochondria must always be coupled in MyPs, this is not necessarily the case in HSCs, even after 5-FU treatment (Figure 1G). Therefore, we can infer that quiescent HSCs at steady state can produce ATP via PFKFB3 activation in response to stress, enabling additional ATP generation. Furthermore, overexpression of Pfkfb3 in HSCs increased glycolytic dependency, suggesting that PFKFB3 itself can modulate metabolic dependency in HSCs. Changes in glycolytic dependency in HSCs overexpressing Pfkfb3 may seem small (0.06–0.13 mM; Figure 5L and M). However, it is noteworthy that the rate of the reaction catalyzed by PFK varies greatly within a very narrow range of ATP concentrations, less than 1 mM. Webb et al. analyzed the factors controlling PFK activity and reported that the reaction rate of PFK varies by approximately 40% in the 0.3–1 mM ATP concentration range (Webb et al., 2015). The reason that differences in glycolytic dependence could be detected in cells overexpressing Pfkfb3 may be that the ATP concentration at the time of analysis was approximately 0.5–0.6 mM, which is within the range where a small change in ATP concentration can dynamically alter PFK activity.

PFKFB3 supports hematopoiesis in contexts that require robust HSPC proliferation in vitro and in vivo. We showed that the positive or negative effect of Pfkfb3 overexpression or KO on differentiated blood cell production is gradually lost after BMT. This is because HSPCs require PFKFB3 for cell cycle progression during stress hematopoiesis in the early phase after BMT (Figure 7F–J and L–N). However, even during stress hematopoiesis, PFKFB3 is not involved in cell death or homing efficiency (Figure 7K; Figure 7—figure supplement 1H) and appears to contribute primarily to the regulation of transient HSPC proliferation in the BM cavity. HSCs no longer require PFKFB3 for a certain period of time after BMT, probably because they regain a quiescent state. This is consistent with the fact that inhibition of PFKFB3 in quiescent HSCs does not reduce the ATP concentration (Figure 5F and H), suggesting that the activity of PFKFB3 is plastically modified. HSC metabolic plasticity is also illustrated by the mode of PFKFB3 activation, differing depending on stress type. During proliferative stress, PRMT1 methylates PFKFB3 in the HSCs to promote glycolytic ATP production, a modification that increases its activity (Yamamoto et al., 2014). PRMT1 is required for stress hematopoiesis (Zhu et al., 2019), but its downstream targets in HSCs remain unclear. Our results strongly suggest that PRMT1 targets PFKFB3 to stimulate glycolysis in HSCs. In contrast, under OXPHOS inhibition, PFKFB3 phosphorylation by AMPK is induced—another modification that also upregulates its activity. These two PFKFB3 protein modifications allow for flexible regulation of ATP production by glycolysis, even under simultaneous and different stresses. In fact, the constitutively active S461E PFKFB3 mutant, designed to mimic phosphorylation in response to OXPHOS inhibition, enhanced HSC reconstitution capacity after transplantation, suggesting that even if PFKFB3 is activated by one stress (in this case, proliferative), it has the activation capacity to respond to a different stress (i.e. mitochondrial). Therefore, the functions of phosphorylated and methylated forms of PFKFB3 are to some extent interchangeable, and either modification can be used to handle diverse stresses.

In summary, we found that HSCs exhibit a highly dynamic range of glycolytic flux. Our study highlights glycolysis as a pivotal source of energy production in stressed HSCs, and indicates that OXPHOS, although an important source of ATP, can be uncoupled from glycolysis in steady-state HSCs without compromising ATP levels. Because multiple PFKFB3 modifications safeguard HSCs against different stresses by accelerating glycolysis, interventions targeting these might effectively induce or manage stress hematopoiesis. This study provides a platform for comprehensive and quantitative real-time analysis of ATP concentration and its dynamics in HSPCs. Our approach allows for analysis of metabolic programs in rare cells and detection of various metabolic activities within a diverse cell population, making it applicable to the analysis of various tissue systems in normal and diseased states.

Limitations of the study

In this study, 5-FU-treated HSCs were analyzed as cell-cycling HSCs, but if more sensitive and time-saving glucose tracer analysis methods (especially after in vivo labeling with isotopic glucose) are developed, it may be possible to prospectively differentiate and quantitatively analyze HSC metabolism based on the cell surface antigens and cell cycle status. Although our assay uses media that mimic the BM environment, in the near future, in vivo GO-ATeam2 analysis will allow us to measure ATP concentrations in physiologically hypoxic BM.

Materials and methods

Mice and genotyping

C57BL/6 mice (7–16 weeks old, Ly5.2+) were purchased from Japan SLC (Shizuoka, Japan). C57BL/6 mice (Ly5.1+) were purchased from CLEA Japan (Shizuoka, Japan). Knock-in mice harboring GO-ATeam2 (Imamura et al., 2009; Nakano et al., 2011; Yamamoto et al., 2019) in the Rosa26 locus were generated in the Yamamoto laboratory. The GO-ATeam2 mice (8–16 weeks old) were used to analyze HSPCs. Ubc-GFP reporter mice (Ubc-GFP mice) were from the Jackson Laboratory and genotyped using PCR-based assays. GO-ATeam2 mice were genotyped by PCR of tail DNA or by transdermal GFP fluorescence. The PCR protocol was as follows: 94 °C for 5 min; 34 cycles of 94 °C for 30 s, 56 °C for 30 s, 72 °C for 30 s; 72 °C for 5 min; and 4 °C hold. Primers for GO-ATeam2 or Ubc-GFP mice are listed in Supplementary file 6. mVenus-p27K- mice (17–20 weeks old) were provided by Kitamura Laboratory and used for cell cycle analysis (Fukushima et al., 2019). Mice were genotyped using PCR-based assays of tail DNA or transdermal Venus fluorescence. All mice were maintained in the animal facility at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine Research Institute under specific pathogen-free conditions and fed ad libitum. Mice were euthanized by cervical dislocation. All animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine Research Institute. Both male and female mice were used.

Cell preparation

For C57BL/6 mice, bone marrow (BM) cells were isolated from bilateral femurs and tibiae by flushing with PBS + 2% fetal calf serum (FCS) (Gibco) using a 21-gauge needle (Terumo Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) and a 10 mL syringe (Terumo). As an exception, for U-13C6-labeled glucose tracer experiments using C57BL/6 mice, BM was flushed with PBS +0.1% bovine serum albumin (BSA, Cat# A4503). The BM plug was dispersed by refluxing through the needle, and the suspension was centrifuged 680 × g for 5 min at 4 °C. Cells were lysed with lysis buffer (0.17 M NH4Cl, 1 mM EDTA, 10 mM NaHCO3) at room temperature (RT) for 5 min, washed with two volumes PBS + 2% FCS (or PBS +0.1% BSA for tracer experiments), and centrifuged at 680 × g for 5 min at 4 °C. Cells were resuspended in PBS +2% FCS (or PBS +0.1% BSA for tracer experiments) and filtered through 40 µm nylon mesh (BD Biosciences). Cells were again centrifuged 680 × g for 5 min at 4 °C and treated with anti-CD16/32 antibody for Fc-receptor block (2 µL/mouse; BD Biosciences, Cat# 553152) for 10 min at 4 °C. Anti-c-Kit magnetic beads (Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, Cat# 130-091-224) were added at a 1:5 v/v ratio for 15 min at 4 °C. After removing the antibody with two PBS +2% FCS (or PBS +0.1% BSA for tracer experiments) washes, c-Kit-positive cells were isolated using Auto-MACS Pro (Miltenyi Biotec) with the Possel-s or Possel-d2 program. Isolated cells were centrifuged once at 340 × g for 5 min and stained with an antibody cocktail for flow cytometry.

For analysis of the GO-ATeam2 hematopoietic cells, BM from GO-ATeam2 mice was flushed with PBS + 0.1% BSA to minimize exposure to nutrients in FCS. Hemolysis, centrifugation, filtering, and Fc receptor blocking were performed in the same manner as for cell preparation using C57BL/6 mice. Cells were stained for 30 min with an antibody cocktail at 4 °C and then washed and suspended in 1000 µL PBS +0.1% BSA and centrifuged at 340 × g at 4 °C for 5 min. Supernatants were discarded in preparation for flow cytometry.

Flow cytometry and cell sorting

Murine hematopoietic stem and progenitor fractions were labeled as follows: To stain cells from C57BL/6 mice, lineage (Lin) markers (CD4, CD8a, Gr-1, Mac-1, Ter-119, B220)-PerCP-Cy5.5 (BD Biosciences for CD4 (Cat# 550954), Gr-1 (Cat# 552093), Mac-1 (Cat# 550993), B220 (Cat# 552771) and BioLegend for CD8a (Cat# 100734) and Ter-119 (Cat# 116228) antibodies), c-Kit-APC-Cy7 (BioLegend, Cat# 105826), Sca-1-PE-Cy7 (BioLegend, Cat# 122514), CD150-PE (BioLegend, Cat# 115904), CD48-FITC (BioLegend, Cat# 103404), and Flt3-APC (BioLegend, Cat# 135310) were used. For HSC collection five days after 5-FU administration (intraperitoneally or intravenously), Mac-1 antibody was excluded from the antibody cocktail, and the LSK gate was expanded to include c-Kit-high to -dim Lin- cells to include functional HSCs early after 5-FU administration as previously reported (Arai et al., 2004; Umemoto et al., 2022). We did not expand the LSK gate at any time other than five days after 5-FU administration. When sorting or analyzing EPCR+CD150+CD48-LSK cells from C57BL/6 mice or mVenus-p27K-mice, CD150-BV421 (BioLegend, Cat# 115926), CD48-APC (BioLegend, Cat# 103412), and EPCR-PE (Biolegend, Cat# 141503) were used in addition to LSK for staining, and FLT3 staining was excluded. To stain cells from GO-ATeam2 mice or C57BL/6 mice for the 2-NBDG assay or homing assay using Ubc-GFP mice, lineage markers (CD4, CD8a, Gr-1, Mac-1, Ter-119, B220)-PerCP-Cy5.5, c-Kit-APC-Cy7, Sca-1-PE-Cy7, CD150-BV421, and CD48-APC were used. In the analysis using GO-ATeam2 mice, Flt3 was not used to define HSCs because the fluorescence of the FRET sensor (EGFP, mKO) limits the available fluorochromes for surface marker staining. In analysis using the AMPK inhibitor dorsomorphin (Cayman Chemical, Cat# 21207), CD150-APC (BioLegend, Cat# 115910) and CD48-Alexa Fluor700 (BioLegend, Cat# 103426) were used to stain LSK-SLAM to eliminate effects of dorsomorphin fluorescence on cell staining. Cells were resuspended in 0.5–2 mL of PBS +2% FCS+0.1% propidium iodide (PI) (Invitrogen, Cat# P3566) (for C57BL/6 mice) or PBS +0.1% BSA (for GO-ATeam2 mice) and sorted using the FACSAria IIIu Cell Sorter (BD Biosciences) into RPMI1640 (without glucose) (Nacalai Tesque, Cat# 09892–15) containing 4% w/v BSA or GO-ATeam2 basal medium (Ba-M, Supplementary file 1 with 4% w/v BSA) (custom made by Gmep Inc). Murine HSCs were defined as CD150+CD48-Flt3-LSK (for C57BL/6 mice) or CD150+CD48-LSK (for GO-ATeam2 mice and mVenus-p27K- mice, and when EPCR was included in the antibody cocktail against C57BL/6 mice) cells. MPPs were defined as CD150-CD48+Flt3- LSK (for C57BL/6 mice) or CD150-CD48+LSK (for GO-ATeam2 mice) cells. Among myeloid progenitors (MyPs), GMPs/MEPs/CMPs were defined as follows: GMPs (CD16/32+ CD34+), MEPs (CD16/32- CD34-), and CMPs (CD16/32- CD34+). CLPs were defined as Lin-Sca-1lowc-KitlowFlt3+IL7Rα+ cells. Data were analyzed using FlowJo V10 (Tree Star) software.

Intracellular staining for phosphorylated Rb (pRb)

EPCR+ or EPCR- LSK-SLAM cells from PBS- or 5-FU-treated C57BL/6 mice were purified separately (see “Flow cytometry and cell sorting” for details). Anti-phospho-Rb (Ser807/811) antibody (CST, Cat# 8516T) was used as the primary antibody and Anti-rabbit IgG (H+L), F(ab') Fragment (Alexa Fluor488 Conjugate) (CST, Cat# 4412) was used as the secondary antibody. Fixation and permeabilization were performed according to the manufacturer protocol. pRb and DNA content (stained with PI) were analyzed by flow cytometry.

Analysis of mVenus-p27K-mouse-derived BM cells

Surface-marker-stained BM mononuclear cells (MNCs) (see ‘Flow cytometry and cell sorting’ for details) were analyzed by flow cytometry to determine the frequency of G0 marker positivity for EPCR+ or EPCR- CD150+CD48-LSK or progenitor cells.

Seahorse flux analyzer

The extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) and oxygen consumption rate (OCR) were measured using a Seahorse XFe96 extracellular flux analyzer according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Agilent Technologies). Briefly, sorted cells were dispensed to culture plates pre-coated with Cell-Tak (Corning) and then the media was replaced with pre-warmed XF-DMEM medium (Agilent) supplemented with 10 mM glucose, 1 mM pyruvate, and 2 mM glutamine, followed by centrifugation at 200 × g for 5 min. OCR and ECAR were measured at baseline and again after sequential addition of respiratory inhibitors at final concentrations of 1 μM oligomycin (an inhibitor of ATP synthase), 2 µM FCCP (an uncoupling agent of mitochondrial respiration), 0.5 µM rotenone/antimycin (an inhibitor of mitochondrial complex I/III) and 50 mM 2-deoxy-D-glucose (an inhibitor of glycolysis). The experiment was performed by dispensing 75,000 HSCs (PBS or 5-FU treated) or MyPs per well.

2-NBDG assay

For the in vitro 2-NBDG assay, sorted HSCs were exposed to 200 µM 2-NBDG (Cayman Chemical, Cat# 11046) for 30 min. HSCs were then centrifuged at 340 × g at 4 °C for 5 min, and the supernatant was removed. The uptake of 2-NBDG was measured using FACS Aria IIIu. As a negative control, HSCs were simultaneously exposed to 54 µg/ml phloretin or 20 µg/ml cytochalasin B with 2-NBDG.

For the in vivo 2-NBDG assay, C57BL/6 mice treated with PBS or 5-FU were subjected to an in vivo 2-NBDG assay as reported by Jun et al., 2021. Mice received a bolus dose of 375 µg 2-NBDG intravenously and were euthanized by cervical dislocation after 1 hr. Mice were immediately placed on ice, and all subsequent cell preparation processes were performed while the cells were chilled on ice. The 2-NBDG positive cell fraction was detected by flow cytometry.

Conversion of GO-ATeam2 fluorescence to ATP concentration

The GO-ATeam2 knock-in mice were reported by Yamamoto et al., 2019. Briefly, we used a CAG promoter-based knock-in strategy targeting the Rosa26 locus to generate GO-ATeam2 knock-in mice. A study presenting the significance of measuring the absolute concentration of ATP at the single-cell level is currently in preparation for submission, but briefly, the FRET efficiency was converted to the absolute concentration of ATP using the following method (Watanuki et al., in preparation). To permeabilize BM cells, α-hemolysin stock solution (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) was diluted in permeabilization buffer (140 mM KCl (Wako, Cat# 163–03545), 6 mM NaCl (Wako, Cat# 191–01665), 0.1 mM EGTA (Wako, Cat# QB-6401), and 10 mM HEPES (Wako, Cat# 342–01375) [pH 7.4]) to a final concentration of 50 µg/mL α-hemolysin. GO-ATeam2-knock-in BMMNCs were added to the buffer and permeabilized for 30 min at 37 °C under 5% CO2. To calibrate ATP concentration, calibration buffer (140 mM KCl, 6 mM NaCl, 0.5 mM MgCl2 (Wako, Cat# 136–03995), and 10 mM HEPES [pH 7.4]) and Mg-ATP stock solution (Sigma-Aldrich, Cat# A9187) were prepared. After washing GO-ATeam2-knock-in BMMNCs with calibration buffer, fresh calibration buffer without ATP was added. Mg-ATP was gradually added to increase ATP concentration in the cell suspension, and FRET values of the GO-ATeam2 biosensor at defined ATP concentrations were analyzed by flow cytometry. The FRET value (relative ratio of FRET to EGFP fluorescence intensities) was calculated by the following equation.

FRETvalue=FluorescenceofFRETFluorescenceofEGFP (1)

The excitation wavelength of FRET and EGFP was set at 488 nm.

The FRET value was then fitted to Hill’s formula (Hill, 1910) as a function of ATP concentration:

θ=[L]n[KA]n+[L]n (2)

where θ is the original percentage of receptor proteins occupied by the ligand, [L] is the free (unbound) ligand concentration, KA is the concentration of ligand at half saturation, and n is Hill’s coefficient.

Equation 2 was transformed as

log(θ1θ)=nlog[L]nlogKA (3)

such that θ could be expressed by the FRET value as follows:

θ=FRETvalue1.46 (4)

We estimated parameters n and KA by fitting observed FRET values to the linear regression model represented in Equation 3. In our experiment, n=3.1234, and KA = 0.84699. Using these parameters, cellular ATP concentration, [L], was estimated.

Time-course analysis of FRET values

GO-ATeam2 is a ratiometric biosensor that monitors ATP concentration through Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from EGFP to the monomeric version of Kusabira Orange (mKO), regardless of the sensor expression levels (Nakano et al., 2011). Surface-marker-stained BMMNCs from GO-ATeam2 mice were dispensed into a basal medium (Ba-M) containing minimal salts, vitamins, and buffers (HEPES and sodium bicarbonate), but no glucose or mitochondrial substrates (Supplementary file 1), or into a medium containing mitochondrial substrates, pyruvate, lactate, fatty acids, and amino acids, but no glucose (PLFA medium). Depending on the experiment, fresh and surface marker-stained BMMNCs obtained from mice 2, 5, or 14 days after intraperitoneal administration of PBS or 5-FU were dispensed into a Ba-M or PLFA medium. The FRET/EGFP ratio data was imported continuously during analysis in a real-time manner using the BD FACSAria IIIu under ambient pressure. Depending on their purpose, experiments were conducted in the presence or absence of various nutrients or metabolic modulators (Figure 4—figure supplement 1D). For this platform, 2 mL of Ba-M or PLFA medium per tube was pre-saturated with 1% O2/5% CO2/94% N2 to stabilize ATP levels of BMMNCs (Figure 4—figure supplement 1E–F) and mimic the hypoxic BM environment; when medium was not pre-saturated, ATP concentrations rapidly decreased, even in the presence of glucose, pyruvate, or lactate (Figure 4—figure supplement 1E–F).

To reduce the effect of autofluorescence as much as possible, the top 40–50% of EGFP and FRET fractions of MFI were used in the analysis (MFI >1000 for EGFP and FRET). Then, data reporting EGFP and FRET fluorescence values in individual cells from each gating (e.g. HSCs, MPPs) were extracted along with time course data. Relevant nutrients and inhibitors were added to medium with samples for analysis. Data acquired by the FACSAria IIIu device and retrieved as FCS files were analyzed by the flowCore package in R software. The FRET/EGFP ratio of each set of single cells was fitted to a generalized additive model using the ‘gam’ function in the ‘mgcv’ package with ‘s’, a spline-based smoothing function, in default settings as a function of time, then smoothened using the ‘predict’ function. Pseudocolor plots of the FRET/EGFP ratio were created using the ‘kde2d function’. If needed, fitted data were converted to ATP concentration using the model described above.

To compare changes in ATP concentrations in PBS- and 5-FU-treated groups, we corrected differences in baseline ATP concentrations by multiplying all data from the PBS-treated group by the following value: ATP concentration at 0 s in the 5-FU group/ATP concentration at 0 s in the PBS group.

Ki67/Hoechst staining

Ki67 (BD Biosciences, Cat# 558617) and Hoechst 33432 (Invitrogen, Cat# H3570) were used for cell cycle analysis of fixed cells from C57BL/6 mice. A total of 4×106 BMMNCs/sample were stained with anti-CD150-APC, anti-CD48-FITC, anti-lineage (CD4, CD8a, Gr-1, Mac-1, Ter-119, B220)-PerCP-Cy5.5, anti-c-Kit-APC-Cy7, and anti-Sca-1-PE-Cy7 antibodies. To stain samples after 5-FU treatment, Mac-1 was excluded from the antibody cocktail. Stained samples were centrifuged at 340 × g and 4 °C for 5 min. To analyze HSCs derived from mice after in vivo 2-NBDG administration, anti-CD150-PE and anti-CD48-Alexa Fluor700 antibodies were alternatively used to sort and purify HSCs with high or low NBDG uptake. These HSCs were then subjected to Ki67/Hoechst staining. Next, 250 µL of BD Cytofix/Cytoperm (BD Biosciences, Cat# 555028) was added, and samples were incubated for 20 min at 4 °C for fixation. Fixed cells were centrifuged and washed twice at 340×g at 4 °C, with 1 mL BD Perm/Wash buffer (BD Biosciences, Cat# 554723) diluted 10-fold. Each sample was stained with 10 µL of Ki67-Alexa Fluor555 or Ki67-eFlour660 (for 2-NBDG stained HSC) antibodies for 1 h at RT, shaded from light. Ki67-stained cells were centrifuged and washed twice at 340 × g and 4 °C with PBS. Samples were resuspended in 500 µL of PBS + 10 µg/mL Hoechst 33432, filtered, and analyzed with the BD FACSAria IIIu instrument.

FAOBlue assay

Surface marker-stained BMMNCs from PBS- or 5-FU-treated mice were dispensed at 3×105 cells in 500 µL Ba-M, which had been pre-saturated for 48 hr under 1% O2 and 5% CO2 conditions and contained 200 mg/dL glucose and 50 µM verapamil. These cells were then exposed to 5 µM FAOBlue (Funakoshi) for 15 min. As a negative control, BMMNCs were exposed to 100 µM etomoxir simultaneously with FAOBlue. The FAOBlue-stained BMMNCs were then centrifuged at 340 × g for 5 min at 4 °C, and the supernatant was discarded. The fluorescence of FAOBlue was excited at a wavelength of 405 nm and detected in the V 450/50 channel. After analysis, the HSC fraction data were extracted.

Analysis of peripheral blood and BM chimerism

Periorbitally collected peripheral blood from BMT recipients was centrifuged for 3 min at 340 × g and the supernatant discarded. Samples were subjected to hemolysis with 1000 µL of 0.17 M NH4Cl for 40–50 min and centrifuged at 340 × g for 5 min. The supernatant was discarded, and samples were again subjected to hemolysis with 1000 µL of 0.17 M NH4Cl for 10–20 min. Samples were centrifuged again at 340 × g for 5 min and the supernatant was discarded. Pellets were then resuspended in 50 µL PBS and 0.3 µL Fc receptor block and incubated at 4 °C for 5 min. Surface antigen staining was performed using the following antibody panel: Gr-1-PE-Cy7 (BioLegend, Cat# 108416), Mac-1-PE-Cy7 (BioLegend, Cat# 101216), B220-APC (BioLegend, Cat# 103212), CD4-PerCP-Cy5.5, CD8a-PerCP-Cy5.5, CD45.1-PE (BD Biosciences, Cat# 553776), and CD45.2-FITC (BD Biosciences, Cat# 553772). An antibody cocktail was prepared by mixing 0.3 µL of each antibody. The frequency (%) of donor-derived cells was calculated as follows:

The frequency (%) of donor-derived cells = 100 × Donor-derived (Ly5.2+Ly5.1-) cells (%) / Donor-derived cells [%]+Competitor or recipient-derived [Ly5.2-Ly5.1+] cells [%]

Myeloid, B, and T cells were identified by Gr-1+ or Mac-1+, B220+, or CD4+ or CD8+, respectively.

Four months after BM transplant, the frequency of donor-derived cells in BM was determined using one femur and tibia per recipient. Anti-CD150-BV421, anti-CD48-PE (BD Biosciences, Cat# 557485), anti-lineage (CD4, CD8a, Gr-1, Mac-1, Ter-119, B220)-PerCP-Cy5.5, anti-c-Kit-APC-Cy7, anti-Sca-1-PE-Cy7, anti-Ly5.1-Alexa Fluor700 (BioLegend, Cat# 110724), and anti-Ly5.2-FITC antibodies were used for surface antigen detection. An antibody cocktail was prepared by mixing 1 µL of each antibody.

Comparison of metabolite levels before and after sorting

c-Kit-positive cells were isolated using Auto-MACS Pro (Miltenyi Biotec) with the Possel-s or Possel-d2 program as described above (see ‘Cell preparation’ for details). Isolated cells were counted, and 1×105 viable cells were dispensed into methanol containing an internal standard as a pre-sorting cell sample and stored at −80 °C until IC-MS analysis. To the isolated cell suspension, 0.1% PI was added and samples were sorted using the FACS Aria IIIu. A total of 1×105 viable cells (PI- cells) were sorted directly into methanol containing an internal standard as a post-sorting cell sample and stored at −80 °C until IC-MS analysis. The detected metabolites were quantified based on calibration curve data (see ‘Ion chromatography mass spectrometry (IC-MS) analysis’ for details).

Preparation and storage of in vitro U-13C6-glucose tracer samples

For tracer analysis, C57BL/6 mice were euthanized to obtain 25,000–50,000 cells per sample of each fraction (HSC, MPP, GMP, CLP) from BM using the FACSAria IIIu instrument. Numbers of mice used to obtain each fraction were as follows: 30–35 each for steady state HSCs and MPPs, 60–65 each for 5-FU treated HSCs, 10 each for GMPs and CLPs. In addition, bone and BM cells were chilled by placing dishes and tubes on ice during the cell preparation process; samples were washed with ice-cold buffer throughout the entire process before cell sorting. Experiments and experimental manipulations regarding the sampling of mouse femurs and tibias were also performed in the shortest amount of time possible by skilled personnel. Cells were sorted in 0.1% BSA +PBS and sorted cells were centrifuged at 340 × g and 4 °C for 5 min. After discarding the supernatant, cells were added to 1 mL pre-saturated (under 1% O2 and 5% CO2) GO-ATeam2 Ba-M +0.1% BSA+200 mg/dL U-13C6- (Sigma-Aldrich, Cat# 389374) or U-12C6-glucose and incubated 10 or 30 min. If the process of pre-saturation was omitted, ATP levels dropped rapidly within a short time (Figure 4—figure supplement 1F).When using oligomycin (1 µM Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 9996), exposure time was set to 10 min. Samples were then immediately centrifuged at 1000 × g and 4 °C for 3 min. After discarding supernatants, cells were frozen and stored at −80 °C.

Preparation and storage of in vivo U-13C6-glucose tracer samples

U-13C6-glucose administration to C57BL/6 mice was performed based on the methods of Jun et al., 2021, with some modifications. Mice were intraperitoneally administered medetomidine hydrochloride, midazolam, and butorphanol tartrate at 0.75 mg/kg, 4 mg/kg, and 5 mg/kg, respectively. After anesthesia, mice were kept warm on a hot plate set at 37 °C while a 27-gauge needle was placed in the external tail vein and U-13C6-glucose was continuously administered. The dose and duration of U-13C6-glucose administration followed (Jun et al., 2021), and 0.4125 mg/g body mass was administered in 1 min, followed by 0.008 mg/g body mass per minute for 3 hr. After U-13C6-glucose administration, mice were euthanized by cervical dislocation and immediately placed on ice. For in vivo tracer analysis, BMMNCs from the bilateral femur, tibia, pelvis, and sternum of each mouse were used to prepare sufficient numbers of HSCs, and pre-chilled 0.1% BSA +PBS was used for BM flushing and washing. HSCs were directly sorted in methanol and stored at −80 °C until IC-MS analysis. A total of 1–3×104 HSCs were purified from one or two mice in the PBS group and from two or three mice in the 5-FU group.

When generating the heat map of labeling rates in each metabolite, 1 was added as a pseudo number to the labeling rate of all metabolites. When calculating the total amount of 13C labeled metabolites for each pathway, metabolites other than M+0 were summed in each metabolite.

Metabolite extraction

Frozen samples were mixed with 500 µL methanol containing internal standards and sonicated for 10 s. Then, 200 µL ddH2O (Invitrogen, Cat# 10977–015) and 400 µL chloroform (Nacalai tesque, Cat# 08402–55) were added and samples were centrifuged at 10,000 × g and 4 °C for 3 min. The aqueous phase was transferred to an Amicon ultrafiltration system (Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc, Cat# UFC3LCCNB-HMT) and centrifuged at 9100 × g and 4 °C for 3 hr. Filtered samples were analyzed by IC-MS.

Ion chromatography mass spectrometry (IC-MS) analysis

For metabolome analysis focused on glycolytic metabolites and nucleotides, anionic metabolites were measured using an orbitrap-type MS (Q-Exactive Focus; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) connected to a high-performance IC system (ICS-5000+, Thermo Fisher Scientific), enabling highly selective and sensitive metabolite quantification owing to the IC-separation and Fourier Transfer MS principle (Miyajima et al., 2017). The IC instrument was equipped with an anion electrolytic suppressor (Dionex AERS 500; Thermo Fisher Scientific) to convert the potassium hydroxide gradient into pure water before the sample entered the mass spectrometer. Separation was performed using a Dionex IonPac AS11-HC-4 μm IC column (Thermo Fisher Scientific). The IC flow rate was 0.25 mL/min supplemented post-column with a 0.18 mL/min makeup flow of MeOH. The potassium hydroxide gradient conditions for IC separation were as follows: 1–100 mM (0–40 min), 100 mM (40–50 min), and 1 mM (50.1–60 min), with a column temperature of 30 °C. The Q-Exactive Focus mass spectrometer was operated under the ESI negative mode for all detections. A full mass scan (m/z 70–900) was performed at a resolution of 70,000. The automatic gain control target was set at 3×106 ions, and the maximum ion injection time was 100ms. Source ionization parameters were optimized with a spray voltage of 3 kV, and other parameters were as follows: transfer temperature, 320 °C; S-lens level, 50; heater temperature, 300 °C; sheath gas, 36; and aux gas, 10. Metabolite amounts were quantified from calibration curve data generated based on peak areas and respective metabolite amounts.

Quantitative 13C-MFA with OpenMebius

OpenMebius (Open source software for 13C-MFA) provides the platform to simulate isotope labeling enrichment from a user-defined metabolic model setup worksheet developed in MATLAB (MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA; Kajihata et al., 2014). Quantitative 13C-MFA was performed according to a manual prepared by the software developer (http://www-shimizu.ist.osaka-u.ac.jp/hp/en/software/OpenMebius.html), but some metabolic model modifications were made to more faithfully reflect our measured data. Specifically, the model was modified to include (a) the conversion of pyruvate to lactate catalyzed by lactate dehydrogenase, (b) the formation of citrate from acetyl CoA and oxaloacetate catalyzed by citrate synthase, (c) the synthesis of alpha-ketoglutarate from citrate catalyzed by aconitase and isocitrate dehydrogenase, and (d) the synthesis of fumarate from succinate by succinate dehydrogenase. Reactions with pyruvate formate lyase performed by Escherichia coli, Streptococcus spp., and ethanol fermentation of acetyl CoA were excluded from the default metabolic network sheet.

The lactate efflux values in 13C-MFA were determined using the following trial and error method. First, various values (0–100) were entered as candidate lactate efflux values and simulations were run to determine the optimal lactate efflux. When the lactate efflux value was set low (below 50), either the simulation could not be run and an error occurred, or the simulation resulted in the glycolytic system progressing in the opposite direction. These results suggested that the appropriate solution was not obtained because the lactate efflux was unnatural compared to the level of glycolytic metabolites. This was validated by experimental data showing that isotopic labeling rates for most glycolytic metabolites were close to 100% at short labeling times (Figure 1—figure supplement 2C). Therefore, we ran the simulation with a higher lactate efflux value. Finally, we set the lactate efflux to 65, which yielded reasonably satisfactory results for nearly 100% labeling of glycolytic and PPP metabolites in PBS- or DMSO-treated HSCs.

The rate of lactate efflux 5-FU-treated HSCs with the rate of glucose uptake set to 100 was defined using the following equation, with the flux in stationary phase HSC set to 65:

65×(Percentage of glycolytic metabolites labeled with 13C in the total 13C-labelled metabolites [5-FU-treated HSCs])/(Percentage of glycolytic metabolites labeled with 13C in the total 13C-labelled metabolites [PBS-treated HSC])

In the metabolic flux measurements of HSCs under mitochondrial stress, the lactate efflux determined by the above method exceeded the maximum value that could be modeled (85>), so we decreased the lactate efflux flux by 5 and adopted the maximum value, 80, at which modeling became possible. For values of efflux other than those of lactate efflux flux, the values specified by the OpenMebius manual were used to eliminate arbitrary factors as much as possible.

The metabolic substrate used for labeling was set to 100% U-13C6 glucose. Metabolites used in the analysis included the first intermediate metabolite produced when U-13C6 glucose is metabolized (e.g. G6P or F6P with all carbons labeled, the labeled metabolite of the first cycle of the TCA cycle) and the unlabeled metabolite that was measured. Some of the labeled metabolites in the TCA cycle (e.g. citrate [M2]) and erythrose 4-phosphate (M4) in PPP were detected with non-negligible amounts of natural isotopes (>5% even when labeled with U-12C6 glucose compared to U-13C6 glucose). The presence of such natural isotopes may result in overestimation of the amount of increased labeling with U-13C6 glucose. In such cases, the amount of natural isotope detected when labeled with U-12C6 glucose was subtracted from the amount of labeled metabolite detected with U-13C6 glucose. If the resulting true labeled isotope abundance was negative, the labeled amount was modeled as zero. When analyzing in MATLAB, the number of modeling cycles was set to 100, and the iteration time was set to a maximum of 2000 cycles.

Luminometric ATP measurement

HSCs were sorted from C57BL/6 mice treated with PBS or 5-FU and dispensed into pre-saturated GO-ATeam2 medium with 0.1% BSA in a 1%O2/5%CO2 incubator. HSCs were then exposed to 15 µM of PFKFB3 inhibitor (AZ PFKFB3 26) or DMSO and placed in a 1%O2/5%CO2 incubator for 10 min. Cells were centrifuged at 4 °C and 340 × g and the supernatant was removed. ATP measurements were performed according to manufacturer instructions using Cell ATP Assay Reagent Ver. 2 (Toyo B- Net Corporation). The amount of ATP per cell was calculated by dividing the amount of ATP detected by the number of cells used for analysis.

Apoptosis assay of HSC after 2-DG or oligomycin treatment

Purified C57BL/6 mouse-derived HSCs were exposed to 2-DG (50 mM) and oligomycin (1 µM) in pre-saturated 0.1% BSA +GO-ATeam2 medium under 1% O2/5% CO2 conditions for 10 min and subjected to apoptosis assay using the PE Annexin V Apoptosis Detection Kit I (BD Biosciences, Cat# 559763) according to manufacturer instructions.

CRISPR/Cas9 knockout (KO) of Pfkfb3

Target sequences of single guide RNA (sgRNA) were provided in a previous report (Chu et al., 2016) and identified using the web tool GenScript (https://www.genscript.com) for Pfkfb3. sgRNAs were synthesized using a CUGA7 gRNA Synthesis Kit (Nippon Gene, Tokyo, Japan, Cat# 314–08691) following manufacturer instructions, diluted to 1.5 µg/µL, and cryopreserved at −80 °C until use. CD150+CD48-Flt3- LSK cells sorted by FACSAria IIIu were cultured in SF-O3 medium supplemented with stem cell factor (SCF) (50 ng/mL) (Peprotech, Cat# 250–03) and thrombopoietin (TPO) (Peprotech, Cat# 300–18) (50 ng/mL) (S50T50 medium) and incubated under 20% O2/5% CO2 conditions for 16–24 hr, enabling subsequent HSC-specific gene editing with the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Ribonucleoprotein complex preparation and electroporation were conducted as previously reported (Gundry et al., 2016). Briefly, 3 µg Cas9 protein (TrueCut Cas9 Protein v2, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cat# A36496) plus 3 µg of sgRNA were incubated in Buffer T (Invitrogen, Cat# MPK10096) for 20 min at RT in a volume 6 µL. Cultured cells were resuspended in 30 µL Buffer T and added to ribonucleoprotein at a total volume of 36 µL. Cells were electroporated using the Neon Transfection System (Thermo Fisher Scientific) at 1700 V for 20ms with one pulse. The cell suspension was transferred to S50T50 medium and cultured under 20% O2/5% CO2 conditions. To evaluate gene editing efficiency, genomic DNA from LSK cells was extracted using the NucleoSpin system (Macherey-Nagel, Dürin, Germany) 2–3 d after electroporation. PCR was performed using the following settings: 95 °C for 2 min; 35 cycles of 95 °C for 30 s, 60 °C for 30 s, and 72 °C for 30 s; followed by final extension at 72 °C for 5 min. PCR products were purified using Wizard SV Gel and the PCR Clean-Up System (Promega Corporation, Madison, WI, USA, Cat# A9281) following manufacturer instructions. A tracking of indels by decomposition (TIDE) assay (Brinkman et al., 2014) or inference of CRISPR edits analysis (Conant et al., 2022) was performed to analyze the sequence data of each PCR product obtained by Sanger sequencing. Among five sgRNAs, Pfkfb3-sg1 displayed the best editing efficiency and was used for subsequent transplant and culture experiments.

BM transplant of Pfkfb3-KO HSCs

Either Rosa26 (control) or Pfkfb3 sequences in HSCs were targeted using CRISPR/Cas9. After electroporation, HSCs were incubated for 2–3 hr in S50T50 medium under 5%CO2/20%O2 conditions, and then counted using a TC10 Automated Cell Counter (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc, Hercules, CA, USA). Subsequently, 500 gene-edited HSCs together with 2×106 BM cells from Ly5.1 congenic mice were transplanted retro-orbitally into lethally (9.5 Gy using MBR-1520R with a 125 kV 10 mA, 0.5 mm Al, 0.2 mm Cu filter)-irradiated Ly5.1 mice. During Pfkfb3 KO using the vector-free CRISPR-Cas9 system, the KO efficiency was not 100%, so the transplanted cells were a mixture of Pfkfb3-KO cells and wild-type cells. Therefore, after 2, 8, and 16 weeks, peripheral blood was collected and donor-derived chimerism was assessed by a TIDE assay based on a recent study by Shiroshita et al., 2022. The following oligonucleotides for sgRNA synthesis and primers for post-knockout genomic PCR were used.

  • For Rosa26 region KO: sgRNA target: 5′-ACTCCAGTCTTTCTAGAAGA-3′

  • Forward primer 1: 5′-CCAAAGTCGCTCTGAGTTGTTATCAGT-3′

  • Reverse primer 1: 5′-GGAGCGGGAGAAATGGATATGAAG-3′

  • Forward primer 2: 5′-CCAAAGTCGCTCTGAGTTGTTATCAGT-3′

  • Reverse primer 2: 5′-GGAGCGGGAGAAATGGATATGAAG-3′

  • Sequence primer: 5′-ACATAGTCTAACTCGCGACAC-3′

  • For Pfkfb3 KO: sgRNA target: 5′-GTTGGTCAGCTTCGGCCCAC-3

  • Forward primer: 5′-AATTGTGTAGCACAGGATCACC-3′

  • Reverse primer: 5′-GCCACTAAAGGAAGGCTAGTTAC-3′

  • Sequence primer: 5′-CTCAATCTTCCCGAGTCTGTCTC-3′

  • For CD45 KO: sgRNA target: 5′-GGGTTTGTGGCTCAAACTTC-3′

  • Forward primer: 5′-AGAAGCCATTGCACTGACTTTG-3′

  • Reverse primer: 5′-GTGTGATCTTTCCCCGAAACAT-3′

  • Sequence primer: 5′-CTGCAAAGAGGACCCTTTACAGT-3′

To calculate the KO efficiency of the Rosa26 locus, primer 1 or primer 2 was used for PCR amplification.

Pfkfb3 overexpression in GO-ATeam2+ HSCs and time-course analysis of FRET values

cDNA encoding Pfkfb3 was subcloned into pMY-IRES-hCD8 upstream of IRES-hCD8. To produce a recombinant retrovirus, plasmid DNA was transfected into Plat-E cells using FuGENE HD Transfection Reagent (Promega, Cat# E2311). Cell supernatants were then used to transduce GO-ATeam2+ HSCs pre-cultured with SCF and TPO for 16 hr. At 48 hr post-transduction, surface-marker-stained, retrovirally pfkfb3-overexpressed GO-ATeam2+ cells were used for time-course analysis of FRET values as described above subsection ‘Time-course analysis of FRET values’. Cells transduced with pMY-IRES-hCD8 retrovirus served as controls. Transduced cells were stained with the following antibody panel: lineage markers (CD4, CD8a, Gr-1, Mac-1, Ter-119, B220)-PerCP-Cy5.5, c-Kit-APC-Cy7, Sca-1-PE-Cy7, CD150-BV421, CD48-BV510 (BD Biosciences, Cat# 563536), and hCD8-APC (BioLegend, Cat# 980904). FRET value data for hCD8-positive cells were used for subsequent conversion to ATP concentration.

Pfkfb3/Pfkfb3CA overexpression in HSCs and BMT

cDNA encoding Pfkfb3 or the constitutively active S461E Pfkfb3 mutant (Pfkfb3CA Bando et al., 2005) was subcloned into pMY-IRES-hCD8 upstream of IRES-hCD8 or into pMY-IRES-EGFP upstream of IRES-EGFP (Nosaka et al., 1999), respectively. To produce a recombinant retrovirus, plasmid DNA was transfected into Plat-E cells using the FuGENE HD Transfection Reagent. Cell supernatants containing virus were then filtered with Millex-HV Syringe Filter Unit (0.45 µm, PVDF, 33 mm, gamma sterilized, Millipore) and used to transduce Ly5.1+ HSCs pre-cultured in SCF and TPO for 16 hr.

At 48 hr post-transduction, 2000 transduced GFP+ cells were sorted and transplanted, together with 4×105 BMMNCs from C57BL/6-Ly5.2 mice, into lethally (9.5 Gy using MBR-1520R with a 125 kV 10 mA, 0.5 mm Al, 0.2 mm Cu filter)-irradiated C57BL/6-Ly5.2 mice. Cells transduced with pMY-IRES-EGFP retrovirus served as controls. After 1–4 months, peripheral blood was collected and donor-derived chimerism was analyzed by flow cytometry. The frequency (%) of donor-derived cells was calculated as follows:

100×Donor-derived (Ly5.2-Ly5.1+) cells (%) / (Donor-derived cells [%]+Competitor or recipient-derived [Ly5.2+Ly5.1-] cells [%])

Knockout and overexpression of Pfkfb3 in HSPC and non-competitive BMT

PFKFB3 was knocked out and overexpressed in FACS-sorted Lin-Sca-1+c-Kit+ and Ly5.2+ cells, respectively. Methods were partially modified from those described in the ‘CRISPR/Cas9 KO of Pfkfb3’ and ‘Pfkfb3/Pfkfb3CA overexpression in HSCs and BMT’ sections.

For KO of Pfkfb3, triple-gRNA purchased from Synthego (Redwood City, CA, USA) was used. After gene editing, Ly5.2+ HSPCs were collected and cultured in S50T50 medium under 5% CO2/20% O2 conditions for 2–3 hr, and 3×105 HSPCs were transplanted retro-orbitally into lethally-irradiated (8.5 Gy using MBR-1520R-3 (Hitachi Power Solutions) with a 125 kV 10 mA, 0.5 mm Al, 0.2 mm Cu filter) recipient Ly5.1 mice noncompetitively.

The sequences of triple-gRNA and the primer set used to confirm KO efficiency were as follows.

  • sgRNA sequences:

  • 5’-AGACCUGGCUUACCUUUCGU-3’

  • 5’-UGGAGAUGUAAGUCUUACCC-3’

  • 5’-GUUGGUCAGCUUCGGCCCAC-3’

  • Forward Primer: 5’-CAAAGGAAAAGTCCCATGGAGA-3’

  • Reverse Primer: 5’-GGGCTTTGGCATGTGGAATG-3’

  • Sequencing Primer: 5’-CAAAGGAAAAGTCCCATGGAGAATG-3’

For Pfkfb3 overexpression, HSPCs were cultured in S50T50 medium under 5% CO2/20% O2 conditions for 8–16 hr after retroviral transduction, and the equivalent of 3×105 HSPCs were noncompetitively transplanted retro-orbitally into lethally-irradiated (8.5 Gy using MBR-1520R-3) recipient Ly5.1 mice. After transduction, a group of the cells was cultured in S50T50 medium for 48 hr to confirm that transduction (GFP positivity) had been established.

Cell cycle analysis and apoptosis assay of Pfkfb3-KO/overexpressing HSPCs after non-competitive BMT

BMMNCs were collected from the bilateral femur, tibia, pelvic bone, and sternum of each individual recipient mouse on day 2 after noncompetitive BMT. Recipient BMMNCs were then stained with Lineage-marker-PerCP-Cy5.5, Ly5.1-PerCP-Cy5.5, and Ly5.2-PE (cell cycle analysis) or Lineage-marker-FITC, Ly5.1-FITC, and Ly5.2-Alexa Fluor700 (apoptosis assay). For the analysis, all BMMNCs from each recipient were used in one analysis, and all lineage-marker negative Ly5.2+ cells were analyzed. Cell cycle analysis (Ki67/Hoechst33432 staining) was performed as described in the ‘Ki67/Hoechst33432 staining’ section. In vivo BrdU labeling assays were performed as reported by Jun et al., 2021 using the FITC BrdU Flow Kit (BD Biosciences, Cat# 559619). Apoptosis assays were performed using the PE Annexin V Apoptosis Detection Kit I according to manufacturer instructions.

Cell cycle analysis (Ki67/Hoechst33432 staining) of Pfkfb3-overexpressing HSPCs after transplantation was also performed using all BMMNCs from each recipient mouse, and the analysis was performed on all Pfkfb3-overexpressing cells (GFP+).

5-FU administration after BM recovery in Pfkfb3-KO HSPCs

PFKFB3 was gene-edited in HSPCs using triple-gRNA as described above, and the equivalent of 3×105 LSK cells were transplanted retro-orbitally into lethally-irradiated (8.5 Gy using MBR-1520R-3) recipient Ly5.1 mice noncompetitively. After 2 months, recipient mice were treated with 150 mg/kg of 5-FU intraperitoneally. Peripheral blood was collected on the day of 5-FU administration (day 1), and on days 4, 6, 9, and 16. The dynamics of Pfkfb3- or Rosa26-KO cell abundance (as control group) were analyzed by Sanger sequencing as described above.

Homing assay of Pfkfb3-KO HSPCs

PFKFB3 was gene-edited in GFP+ HSPCs using triple-gRNA as described above. After editing, 2×105 cells were retro-orbitally transplanted into lethally-irradiated (8.5 Gy) C57BL/6 mice. After 16 hours, BMMNCs from recipients were stained for surface antigens and analyzed for the percentage of GFP + cells within the PI-negative cells.

Immunocytochemistry

HSCs from PBS- or 5-FU-treated C57BL/6 mice were subjected to immunocytochemistry using antibodies for PFKFB3 (Abcam, Cat# ab181861), phosphorylated-PFKFB3 (Bioss, Cat# bs-3331R), and methylated-PFKFB3 (developed by Takehiro Yamamoto) (Yamamoto et al., 2014). Purified HSCs were resuspended in 50% FCS-PBS and cytospun using the Thermo Scientific Cytospin 4 system (Thermo Fisher Scientific). When using 2-NBDG-positive or -negative HSCs, C57BL/6 mice were given 2-NBDG intravenously (see ‘In vivo 2-NBDG assay’ for details) and subjected to cytospinning. Cytospun cells were fixed using 4% paraformaldehyde in PBS pH 7.4 for 10 min at RT. Fixed cells were washed twice with ice-cold PBS. For permeabilization, cells were incubated for 5 min with PBS containing 0.1% Triton X-100. Permeabilized cells were washed once with ice-cold PBS. After blocking with 3% BSA-PBS for 30 min, cells were incubated in the diluted antibody with 0.3% BSA-PBS in a humidified chamber overnight at 4 °C. A dilution factor of 1:100 was used for all antibodies. The next day, cells were incubated with Goat anti-Mouse IgG2a Secondary Antibody, Alexa Fluor 555 (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cat# A-21137) and DAPI in 0.3% BSA-PBS for 1 hr at RT. After two washes with ice-cold PBS, samples were coverslipped with a drop of mounting medium and imaged with a Zeiss LSM 880 microscope (ZEISS, Jena, Germany). Images were acquired at room temperature under darkened conditions using a 100 x oil immersion lens. The obtained image data was analyzed using Imaris software (Bitplane) to calculate the MFI of the target for each cell.

RNA sequencing

Library preparation for RNA-seq was performed on 3000–3500 HSCs derived from mice after 5-FU or PBS administration. Total RNA was prepared using Rneasy Micro kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany). cDNA was synthesized and amplified using SMART-Seq v4 Ultra Low Input RNA Kit for Sequencing (Takara Bio, Inc, Shiga, Japan). RNA-seq libraries were prepared using the Nextera XT Kit (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA). Single-end 75 bp sequencing was performed on a NextSeq 500 platform (Illumina). RNA-seq data were obtained from three independent experiments (biological replicates) for each cell type. TopHat (version 2.0.13; with default parameters) was used for mapping to the reference genome (UCSC/mm10) with annotation data from iGenomes (Illumina). Then, gene expression levels were quantified using Cuffdiff (Cufflinks version 2.2.1; with default parameters).

MACSQuant analysis of cell number

After single GO-ATeam2 knock-in HSC culture, most of the medium (150–170 µL) in wells of a 96-well plate was aspirated and samples were stained with 10 µL antibody cocktail for 30 min at 4 °C. Antibodies used were anti-lineage markers (CD4, CD8a, Gr-1, Mac-1, B220, Ter-119)-PerCP-Cy5.5, anti-c-Kit-APC-Cy7, anti-Sca-1-PE-Cy7, anti-CD150-BV421, and anti-CD48-APC for LSK-SLAM analysis. Antibody cocktail was prepared by mixing 0.1 µL of each antibody. After incubation, 100 µL PBS +2% FCS was added to wells, and the plates were centrifuged for 5 min at 4 °C and 400 × g with low acceleration and medium deceleration. Then, 100 µL supernatant was aspirated and cell pellets were resuspended in 200 µL PBS +2% FCS+0.1% PI+0.25% Flow-Check Fluorospheres (Beckman Coulter, Brea, CA, USA, Cat# A69183). Samples were acquired in fast mode in the MACSquant analysis settings, and volumes of 100 µL (large colonies) or 150–170 µL (small colonies) were analyzed. Data were exported as FCS files and analyzed using FlowJo software. Cell number was corrected by bead count of Flow-Check (~1000 cells/µL). HSCs were counted using CD150+CD48-LSK cell counts. Megakaryocytes were identified as cells with high forward scatter and side scatter, as well as high CD150 and CD41 expression.

cDNA synthesis and quantitative RT-PCR

cDNA synthesis and RT-PCR using PFKFB3CA overexpressing cells were performed as previously reported. The primers used were as follows:

  • MA069663-F: 5′-GGGCATGGCGAGAATGAGTACAA-3′

  • MA069663-R: 5′-TTCAGCTGGGCTGGTCCACAC-3′

Statistical analysis

Data are presented as means ± SD unless otherwise stated. For multiple comparisons, statistical significance was determined by Tukey’s multiple comparison test using the Tukey HSD function in the R×64 4.0.3 software (R Core Team, Vienna, Austria). A paired or unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-test and two-way ANOVA with Sidak’s test were used for experiments with two groups. A p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Acknowledgements

We thank E Lamar for preparation of the manuscript, T Kitamura for providing mVenus-p27K- mice, and N Toyama-Sorimachi and H Shindou for their critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported in part by KAKENHI grants from MEXT/JSPS (JP19K17847, JP21K08431 to HK; JP19K17877, JP21J01690, JP22K08493 to DK; JP18H02845, JP20K21621, JP21H02957, JP 22K19550 to K.T.), AMED grants (JP22zf0127007 to MS; JP18ck0106444, JP18ae0201014, JP20bm0704042, JP20gm1210011 to KT), grants from the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (29–1015, 20A1010, 23A1004 to HK; 26–001, 21A2001, 23A2002 to KT), the Takeda Science Foundation (to DK and KT), a JB Research Grant (to DK), Kaketsuken Grant for Young Researchers (KT), the Human Biology Microbiome Quantum Research Center (WPI-Bio2Q) supported by MEXT (to MS), and the MEXT Joint Usage/Research Center Program at the Advanced Medical Research Center, Yokohama City University (to KT).

Appendix 1

Appendix 1—key resources table.

Reagent type (species) or resource Designation Source or reference Identifiers Additional information
Strain, strain background (Mus musculus, male and female) C57BL/6JJmsSlc Ly5.2+ Japan SLC (Shizuoka, Japan) N/A
Strain, strain background (Mus musculus, male and female) C57BL/6J-Ly5.1 CLEA Japan (Shizuoka, Japan) N/A Utilized for hematopoietic cell transplantation studies to distinguish donor and recipient cells.
Strain, strain background (Mus musculus, male and female) GO-ATeam2 mice Generated in Yamamoto laboratory N/A Used for ATP analysis
Strain, strain background (Mus musculus, male and female) Ubc-GFP mice The Jackson Laboratory Stock No: 007076
Strain, strain background (Mus musculus, male and female) mVenus-p27K- mice Provided by Kitamura Laboratory N/A Used for cell cycle analysis
Antibody Anti-mouse CD4-PerCP-Cy5.5
(clone: RM4-5, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 65–0042 U100;
RRID:AB_2621876
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD8a-PerCP-Cy5.5
(clone: 53–6.7, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 65–0081 U100;
RRID:AB_2621882
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse B220-PerCP-Cy5.5
(clone: RA3-6B2, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 65–0452 U100;
RRID:AB_2621892
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse B220-APC
(clone: RA3-6B2, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 103212;
RRID:AB_312997
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse Ter-119-PerCP-Cy5.5
(clone: TER-119, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 65–5921 U100 (0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse Gr1 (Ly-6G/6 C)-PerCP-Cy5.5
(clone: RB6-8C5, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 108428;
RRID:AB_893558
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse Gr1-PE-Cy7
(clone: RB6-8C5, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 60–5931 U100;
RRID:AB_2621870
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse Mac1 (CD11b)-PerCP-Cy5.5
(clone: M1/70, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 65–0112 U100;
RRID:AB_2621885
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse Mac1-PE-Cy7
(clone: M1/70, rat monoclonal)
TONBO biosciences Cat# 60–0112 U100;
RRID:AB_2621836
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD45.1-PE
(clone: A20, mouse monoclonal)
BD biosciences Cat# 553776;
RRID:AB_395044
(1 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD45.1-Alexa Fluor700
(clone: A20, mouse monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 110724;
RRID:AB_493733
(1 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD45.2-FITC
(clone: 104, mouse monoclonal)
BD biosciences Cat# 553772;
RRID:AB_395041
(1 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse Sca-1 (Ly-6A/E)-PE-Cy7
(clone: E13-161.7, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 122514;
RRID:AB_756199
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse c-Kit (CD117)-APC-Cy7
(clone: 2B8, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 105826;
RRID:AB_1626278
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody CD117 MicroBeads Mouse Miltenyi Biotec Cat# 130-091-224 (1:5)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD150-PE
(clone: TC15-12F12.2, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 115904;
RRID:AB_313683
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD150-BV421
(clone: TC15-12F12.2, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 115926;
RRID:AB_2562190
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD150-APC
(clone: TC15-12F12.2, armenian hamster monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 115910;
RRID:AB_493460
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD48-FITC
(clone: HM48-1, armenian hamster monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 103404;
RRID:AB_313019
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD48-APC
(clone: HM48-1, qrmenian hamster monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 103411;
RRID:AB_571996
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD48-BV510
(clone: HM48-1, armenian hamster monoclonal)
BD biosciences Cat# 563536 (0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD48-Alexa Fluor700
(clone: HM48-1, armenian hamster monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 103426;
RRID:AB_10612754
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-mouse CD41-APC
(clone: MWReg30, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 133914;
RRID:AB_11125581
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-CD34-BV421
(clone: RAM34, rat monoclonal)
BD biosciences Cat# 562608;
RRID:AB_11154576
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-CD34-FITC
(clone: RAM34, rat monoclonal)
Invitrogen Cat# 11-0341-82;
RRID:AB_465021
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-Flt3 (CD135)-APC
(clone: A2F10, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 135310;
RRID:AB_2107050
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-CD127 (IL-7Rα)
(clone: A7R34, rat monoclonal)
BioLegend Cat# 135023;
RRID:AB_10897948
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-CD201 (EPCR)-PE (clone: RCR-16, rat monoclonal) BioLegend Cat# 141504;
RRID:AB_10899579
(0.5 µL, 1 µL, or 2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-Ki67-Alexa Fluor555
(clone: B56, mouse monoclonal)
BD biosciences Cat# 558617 (10 µL/sample)
Antibody Anti-Ki67 Monoclonal Antibody (SolA15), eFluor 660, eBioscience
(Clone: SolA15, mouse monoclonal)
Invitrogen Cat# 50-5698-82;
RRID:AB_2574235
(10 µL/sample)
Antibody Fc-block (anti-mouse CD16/32)
(clone: 2.4-G2, rat monoclonal)
BD biosciences Cat# 553142;
RRID:AB_394657
(2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Anti-CD16/CD32 Monoclonal Antibody (93),
Alexa Fluor 700 (clone: 93, rat monoclonal)
Invitrogen Cat# 56-0161-82;
RRID:AB_493994
(2 µL/mouse)
Antibody Phospho-Rb (Ser807/811) (D20B12) XP (rabbit monoclonal) Cell Signaling Technology Cat# 8516 (1:200)
Antibody Anti-human CD8-APC (clone: SK1, mouse monoclonal) Biolegend Cat# 344721;
RRID:AB_2075390
(1 µL/sample)
Antibody Recombinant anti-PFKFB3 antibody (rabbit monoclonal) Abcam Cat# ab181861 (1:100)
Antibody Anti-PFK2 (Ser467) antibody (rabbit polyclonal) Bioss Cat# bs-3331R (1:100)
Antibody Recombinant anti-methyl-PFKFB3 antibody (rabbit polyclonal) Obtained from
Takehiro Yamamoto at Keio University
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4480
N/A (1:100)
Gene (Mus musculus) Pfkfb3 This paper N/A Details are as described in Methods
Gene (Mus musculus) Pfkfb3CA This paper N/A Details are as described in Methods
Recombinant DNA reagent pMYs-IRES-GFP Obtained from
Toshio Kitamura at IMUST
N/A Used as backbone vector for gene overexpression
Recombinant DNA reagent pMYs-IRES-human CD8 Obtained from
Go Nagamatsu at Kyushu University
N/A Used as backbone vector for gene overexpression
Recombinant DNA reagent Pfkfb3-knockout gRNA (s) Custom made in lab or purchased from Synthego, Inc. N/A Details are as described in Methods
Recombinant DNA reagent Rosa-knockout gRNA Custom made in lab N/A Details are as described in Methods
Recombinant DNA reagent CD45-knockout gRNA Custom made in lab N/A Details are as described in Methods
Chemical compound, drug IST Thermo Fisher Scientific Cat# 41400–045
Chemical compound, drug Penicilin Meiji Seika PGLD755
Chemical compound, drug Streptomycin sulfate Meiji Seika SSDN1013
Chemical compound, drug Sodium selenite Nacalai Tesque Cat# 11707–04
Chemical compound, drug Fetal bovine serum Biowest Cat# S1820-500
Chemical compound, drug Fetal bovine serum Thermo Fisher Scientific Cat# 10270–106
Chemical compound, drug Bovine serum albumin Sigma Aldrich Cat# A4503-50G/100 G
Chemical compound, drug 2-mercapto ethanol (2-ME) 1000 x Life Technologies Cat# 21985–023
Chemical compound, drug Thymidine Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. Cat# T0233
Chemical compound, drug RPMI 1640 Amino Acids Solution (50×) Sigma Aldrich Cat# R7131
Chemical compound, drug MEM Vitamin
Solution (100×)
Sigma Aldrich Cat# M6895
Chemical compound, drug L-glutamine Sigma Aldrich Cat# G8540
Chemical compound, drug L-alanine Sigma Aldrich Cat# A7469
Chemical compound, drug L-Serine Sigma Aldrich Cat# S4311
Chemical compound, drug D(+)-Glucose Wako Cat# 049–31165
Chemical compound, drug 13C-glucose Sigma Aldrich Cat# 389374
Chemical compound, drug 2-NBDG Cayman Chemical Cat# 11046
Chemical compound, drug Cytochalasin B Wako Cat# 030–17551
Chemical compound, drug Phloretin TCI chemicals Cat# P1966
Chemical compound, drug 2-morpholinoethanesulfonic acid Wako Cat# 341–01622
Chemical compound, drug methionine sulfone Alfa Aesar Cat# A17027
Chemical compound, drug Sodium L-lactate Sigma Aldrich Cat# L7022
Chemical compound, drug Cholesterol Lipid Concentrate (250 X) Gibco Cat# 12531018
Chemical compound, drug 100mM-Sodium Pyruvate Solution Nacalai tesque Cat# 06977–34
Chemical compound, drug Sodium Hydroxide Wako Cat# 194–18865
Chemical compound, drug 5-fluorouracil Kyowa Hakko Kirin N/A
Chemical compound, drug 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. Cat# D0051
Chemical compound, drug Oligomycin Cell Signaling Technology Cat# 9996 L
Chemical compound, drug FCCP Sigma Aldrich Cat# C2920
Chemical compound, drug Rotenone Sigma Aldrich Cat# R8875
Chemical compound, drug Etomoxir (sodium salt) Cayman chemical Cat# 11969
Chemical compound, drug 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-nor-Leucine Cayman chemical Cat# 17580
Chemical compound, drug Verapamil Sigma Aldrich Cat# V4629
Chemical compound, drug N-acetyl-cysteine Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. Cat# A0905
Chemical compound, drug AZ PFKFB3 26 R&D systems Cat# 5675
Chemical compound, drug Dorsomorphin dihydrochloride Santa Cruz Biotechnology Cat# sc-361173
Chemical compound, drug LKB1/AAK1 dual inhibitor Chem Scene Cat# CS-0342
Chemical compound, drug PKM2 inhibitor(compound 3 k) Selleck Cat# S8616
Chemical compound, drug Recombinant Murine SCF PeproTech Cat# 250–03
Chemical compound, drug Recombinant Human TPO PeproTech Cat# 300–18
Chemical compound, drug α-hemolysin Sigma Aldrich Cat# H9395
Chemical compound, drug Potassium Chloride Wako Cat# 7447-40-7
Chemical compound, drug Sodium Chloride Wako Cat# 7647-14-5
Chemical compound, drug Calcium Nitrate Tetrahydrate Wako Cat# 13477-34-4
Chemical compound, drug Magnesium Sulfate (Anhydrous) Wako Cat# 7487-88-9
Chemical compound, drug Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate Wako Cat# 144-55-8
Chemical compound, drug Disodium Hydrogenphosphate 12-Water Wako Cat# 10039-32-4
Chemical compound, drug Glutathione reduced form Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. Cat# G0074
Chemical compound, drug Ethylene Glycol Bis(β-aminoethylether)-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic Acid Nacalai tesque Cat# 15214–21
Chemical compound, drug HEPES Wako Cat# 7365-45-9
Chemical compound, drug Magnesium Chloride Wako Cat# 7786-30-3
Chemical compound, drug Adenosine 5’-triphosphate magnesium salt Sigma Aldrich Cat# A9187
Chemical compound, drug DMSO Sigma Aldrich Cat# D8418
Chemical compound, drug Ethanol Nacalai tesque Cat# 14712–63
Chemical compound, drug Methanol Nacalai tesque Cat# 21914–03
Chemical compound, drug Chloroform Nacalai tesque Cat# 08401–65
Chemical compound, drug Hoechst 33432 Thermo Fisher Scientific Cat# H3570 (10 µg/mL)
Chemical compound, drug Propidium iodide Thermo Fisher Scientific Cat# P3566 (1:1000)
Chemical compound, drug Flow-Check Fluorspheres Beckman Coulter Cat# 7547053
Chemical compound, drug TrueCut Cas9 Protein v2 Thermo Fisher Scientific Cat# A36498
Chemical compound, drug ExTaq Takara bio Cat# RR001
Chemical compound, drug NotI Nippon Gene Cat# 312–01453
Chemical compound, drug EcoRI Nippon Gene Cat# 314–00112
Chemical compound, drug RetroNectin (Recombinant Human Fibronectin Fragment) Takara Cat# T100A
Chemical compound, drug UltraPure DNase_RNase-Free Distilled Water Invitrogen Cat# 10977015
Chemical compound, drug GSK3368715 MedChemExpress Cat# HY-128717A
Commercial assay or kit RNeasy Mini Kit QIAGEN Cat# 74104
Commercial assay or kit SuperScript VILO Thermo Fisher Scientific Cat# 11754–050
Commercial assay or kit 2-mercapto ethanol Sigma Aldrich Cat# M6250
Commercial assay or kit Flow Cytometry Size Calibration Kit (nonfluorescent microspheres) Invitrogen Cat# F13838
Commercial assay or kit ‘’Cellno’’ ATP assay reagent Ver.2 Toyo B-Net Corporation CA2-50
Commercial assay or kit Fixation and Permeabilization Solution BD Biosciences Cat# 554722
Commercial assay or kit Perm/Wash Buffer BD Biosciences Cat# 554723
Commercial assay or kit CellROX Deep Red Reagent Invitrogen Cat# C10422
Commercial assay or kit SMART-Seq v4 Ultra Low Input RNA Kit for Sequencing Clontech Cat# Z4888N
Commercial assay or kit NEBNext Ultra DNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina New England BioLabs Cat# E7370S
Commercial assay or kit CUGA7 gRNA Synthesis Kit Nippon Gene Cat# 314–08691
Commercial assay or kit Extract-N-Amp Blood PCR Kit Merck Cat# XNAB2-1KT
Commercial assay or kit Wizard SV Gel and PCR Clean-Up System Promega Cat# A9281
Commercial assay or kit BD Pharmingen FITC BrdU Flow Kit BD Biosciences Cat# 559619
Commercial assay or kit BD Pharmingen PE Annexin V Apoptosis Detection Kit I BD Biosciences Cat# 559763
Commercial assay or kit FAOBlue Funakoshi Cat# FDV-0033
Software, algorithm R v3.5.2 R Development Core Team, 2018 http://www.r-project.org
Software, algorithm TopHat v2.0.13 10.1186/gb-2013-14-4-r36; Kim et al., 2013 https://ccb.jhu.edu/software/tophat/index.shtml
Software, algorithm Cufflinks v2.2.1 10.1038/nbt.1621; Trapnell et al., 2012 http://cole-trapnell-lab.github.io/cufflinks/
Software, algorithm GSEA software v4.3.0 Broad Institute; Subramanian et al., 2005 https://www.gsea-msigdb.org/gsea/index.jsp
Software, algorithm FlowJo version 9 BD Biosciences https://www.flowjo.com/
Software, algorithm TIDE v3.3.0 10.1093/nar/gku93; Brinkman et al., 2014 https://tide.nki.nl/
Software, algorithm OpenMebius 10.1155/2014/627014; Kajihata et al., 2014 http://www-shimizu.ist.osaka-u.ac.jp/hp/en/software/OpenMebius.html

Funding Statement

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Contributor Information

Hiroshi Kobayashi, Email: hikobayashi.md@gmail.com.

Yuki Sugiura, Email: yuki.sgi@gmail.com.

Keiyo Takubo, Email: keiyot@gmail.com.

Simón Méndez-Ferrer, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Utpal Banerjee, University of California, Los Angeles, United States.

Funding Information

This paper was supported by the following grants:

  • MEXT/JSPS JP19K17847 to Hiroshi Kobayashi.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP19K17877 to Daiki Karigane.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP18H02845 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development JP22zf0127007 to Makoto Suematsu.

  • Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development JP18ck0106444 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • National Center for Global Health and Medicine 29-1015 to Hiroshi Kobayashi.

  • National Center for Global Health and Medicine 26-001 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • Takeda Science Foundation to Daiki Karigane, Keiyo Takubo.

  • JB Research Grant to Daiki Karigane.

  • Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Human Biology Microbiome Quantum Research Center (WPI-Bio2Q) to Makoto Suematsu.

  • Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology MEXT Joint Usage/Research Center Program at the Advanced Medical Research Center Yokohama City Univ to Keiyo Takubo.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP21K08431 to Hiroshi Kobayashi.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP21J01690 to Daiki Karigane.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP22K08493 to Daiki Karigane.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP20K21621 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP21H02957 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • MEXT/JSPS JP 22K19550 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development JP18ae0201014 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development JP20bm0704042 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development JP20gm1210011 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • National Center for Global Health and Medicine 20A1010 to Hiroshi Kobayashi.

  • National Center for Global Health and Medicine 23A1004 to Hiroshi Kobayashi.

  • National Center for Global Health and Medicine 21A2001 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • National Center for Global Health and Medicine 23A2002 to Keiyo Takubo.

  • Kaketsuken Grant for Young Researchers to Keiyo Takubo.

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests declared.

Author contributions

Data curation, Formal analysis, Validation, Investigation, Visualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft.

Funding acquisition, Visualization, Methodology, Writing – review and editing.

Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology.

Resources, Methodology.

Funding acquisition, Methodology.

Methodology.

Formal analysis, Investigation.

Methodology.

Methodology.

Data curation, Investigation.

Data curation.

Data curation, Investigation.

Data curation, Investigation.

Investigation.

Investigation.

Resources.

Resources.

Resources.

Resources.

Resources.

Resources.

Resources.

Resources.

Validation, Writing – review and editing.

Resources, Funding acquisition, Validation.

Resources, Validation.

Resources, Validation.

Conceptualization, Resources, Data curation, Formal analysis, Supervision, Funding acquisition, Validation, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Project administration, Writing – review and editing.

Ethics

Work involving animal experimentation had been conducted according to local ethical standards. All experimental procedures were approved by a local ethical committee (permits 2023-A007 and 2023-D018).

Additional files

Supplementary file 1. Custom RPMI medium for culture and ATP analysis.

Composition of custom RPMI medium for culture (upper) and ATP analysis (lower). “-“ means 0 mg/L.

elife-87674-supp1.xlsx (14KB, xlsx)
Supplementary file 2. In vitro tracer analysis for 5-FU-treated HSCs.

Results of tracer analysis using U-13C6-glucose with HSCs from mice treated with PBS or 5-FU. Each section contains raw data from the glycolytic system, TCA cycle, and P~NAS from top to bottom. Data from three individual experiments are described for each. All values represent average metabolite levels in single HSCs obtained by dividing the metabolite levels detected in HSCs (compared to internal standards) by the number of HSCs used in the analysis.

elife-87674-supp2.xlsx (13.4KB, xlsx)
Supplementary file 3. In vitro tracer analysis for oligomycin-treated HSCs.

Results of tracer analysis using U-13C6-glucose with HSCs treated with DMSO (Oligomycin-) or oligomycin (Oligomycin+). Each section contains raw data from the glycolytic system, TCA cycle, and P~NAS from top to bottom. Data from four individual experiments are described for each. All values represent average metabolite levels in single HSCs, obtained by dividing the metabolite levels detected in HSCs (compared to internal standards) by the number of HSCs used in the analysis.

elife-87674-supp3.xlsx (14.5KB, xlsx)
Supplementary file 4. 13C quantitative metabolic flux analysis.

Metabolic flux values of each enzyme obtained from 100 trials of 13C quantitative metabolic flux analysis for PBS-treated (left), 5-FU-treated (middle), and OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs (right).

elife-87674-supp4.xlsx (49KB, xlsx)
Supplementary file 5. In vivo tracer analysis for 5-FU treated mice.

Results of tracer analysis during continuous in vivo administration of U-13C6-glucose to mice treated with 5-FU or PBS. A sheet is prepared for each metabolite and each contains two tables. The A.U. table (left) shows the metabolite levels detected in the four biological replicates in the 5-FU and PBS groups, obtained by dividing the metabolite levels detected in HSCs (compared to internal standards) by the number of HSCs used in the analysis. The ratio table (right) shows the calculated percentage of labeled metabolites among detected metabolites, where 12 C indicates unlabeled metabolites and 13Cn indicates n-carbon labeled metabolites by U-13C6-glucose.

elife-87674-supp5.xlsx (89.6KB, xlsx)
Supplementary file 6. Primer list for genotyping PCR.
elife-87674-supp6.xlsx (10.2KB, xlsx)
MDAR checklist

Data availability

RNA sequence data were deposited in GEO (accession number GSE260765). All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files; source data files have been provided for all figures.

The following dataset was generated:

Watanuki S, Kobayashi H, Sorimachi Y, Haraguchi M, Tamaki S, Murakami K, Nishiyama A, Tamura T, Takubo K. 2024. Context-Dependent Modification of PFKFB3 in Hematopoietic Stem Cells Promotes Anaerobic Glycolysis and Ensures Stress Hematopoiesis. NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus. GSE260765

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eLife assessment

Simón Méndez-Ferrer 1

This important study provides novel strategies to overcome certain limitations when investigating the metabolism of hematopoietic stem cells, mainly due to their low abundance. The study provides compelling evidence suggesting that proliferative hematopoietic stem cells mainly use glycolysis (rather than mitochondrial OXPHOS or TCA cycle) as their primary energy source during emergency hematopoiesis. The article provides direct links between metabolic features and cell proliferation and explores alternative energy sources, and is of great interest to stem cell biologists.

Review #1 (Public review)

Anonymous

Watanuki et al used metabolomic tracing strategies of U-13C6-labeled glucose and 13C-MFA to quantitatively identify the metabolic programs of HSCs during steady-state, cell-cycling, and OXPHOS inhibition. They found that 5-FU administration in mice increased anaerobic glycolytic flux and decreased ATP concentration in HSCs, suggesting that HSC differentiation and cell cycle progression are closely related to intracellular metabolism and can be monitored by measuring ATP concentration. Using the GO-ATeam2 system to analyze ATP levels in single hematopoietic cells, they found that PFKFB3 can accelerate glycolytic ATP production during HSC cell cycling by activating the rate-limiting enzyme PFK of glycolysis. Additionally, by using Pfkfb3 knockout or overexpressing strategies and conducting experiments with cytokine stimulation or transplantation stress, they found that PFKFB3 governs cell cycle progression and promotes the production of differentiated cells from HSCs in proliferative environments by activating glycolysis. Overall, in their study, Watanuki et al combined metabolomic tracing to quantitatively identify metabolic programs of HSCs and found that PFKFB3 confers glycolytic dependence onto HSCs to help coordinate their response to stress.

Review #2 (Public review)

Anonymous

In the manuscript Watanuki et al. define the metabolic profile of HSCs in stress/proliferative (myelosuppression with 5-FU), and mitochondrial inhibition and homeostatic conditions. Their conclusions are that during proliferation HSCs rely more on glycolysis (as other cell types) while HSCs in homeostatic conditions are mostly dependent on mitochondrial metabolism. Mitochondrial inhibition is used to demonstrate that blocking mitochondrial metabolism results in similar features of proliferative conditions.

The authors used state-of-the-art technologies that allow metabolic readout in a limited number of cells like rare HSCs. These applications could be of help in the field since one of the major issues in studying HSCs metabolism is the limited sensitivity of the "standard" assays, which make them not suitable for HSC studies.

eLife. 2024 Apr 4;12:RP87674. doi: 10.7554/eLife.87674.3.sa3

Author response

Shintaro Watanuki 1, Hiroshi Kobayashi 2, Yuki Sugiura 3, Masamichi Yamamoto 4, Daiki Karigane 5, Kohei Shiroshita 6, Yuriko Sorimachi 7, Shinya Fujita 8, Takayuki Morikawa 9, Shuhei Koide 10, Motohiko Oshima 11, Akira Nishiyama 12, Koichi Murakami 13, Haraguchi Miho 14, Shinpei Tamaki 15, Takehiro Yamamoto 16, Tomohiro Yabushita 17, Yosuke Tanaka 18, Go Nagamatsu 19, Hiroaki Honda 20, Shinichiro Okamoto 21, Nobuhito Goda 22, Tomohiko Tamura 23, Ayako Nakamura-Ishizu 24, Makoto Suematsu 25, Atsushi Iwama 26, Toshio Suda 27, Keiyo Takubo 28

The following is the authors’ response to the original reviews.

Reviewer #1:

Watanuki et al used metabolomic tracing strategies of U-13C6-labeled glucose and 13C-MFA to quantitatively identify the metabolic programs of HSCs during steady-state, cell-cycling, and OXPHOS inhibition. They found that 5-FU administration in mice increased anaerobic glycolytic flux and decreased ATP concentration in HSCs, suggesting that HSC differentiation and cell cycle progression are closely related to intracellular metabolism and can be monitored by measuring ATP concentration. Using the GO-ATeam2 system to analyze ATP levels in single hematopoietic cells, they found that PFKFB3 can accelerate glycolytic ATP production during HSC cell cycling by activating the rate-limiting enzyme PFK of glycolysis. Additionally, by using Pfkfb3 knockout or overexpressing strategies and conducting experiments with cytokine stimulation or transplantation stress, they found that PFKFB3 governs cell cycle progression and promotes the production of differentiated cells from HSCs in proliferative environments by activating glycolysis. Overall, in their study, Watanuki et al combined metabolomic tracing to quantitatively identify metabolic programs of HSCs and found that PFKFB3 confers glycolytic dependence onto HSCs to help coordinate their response to stress. Even so, several important questions need to be addressed as below:

We sincerely appreciate the constructive feedback from the reviewer. Additional experiments and textual improvements have been made to the manuscript based on your valuable suggestions. In particular, the major revisions are as follows: First, we investigated the extent to which other metabolites, not limited to the glycolytic system, affect metabolism in HSCs after 5-FU treatment. Second, the extent to which PFKFB3 contributes to the expansion of the HSPC pool in the bone marrow was adjusted to make the description more accurate based on the data. Finally, we overexpressed PFKFB3 in HSCs derived from GO-ATeam2 mice and confirmed that PRMT1 inhibition did not reduce the ATP concentration. We believe that the reviewer's valuable comments have further deepened our knowledge of the significance of glycolytic activation by PFKFB3 that we have demonstrated. Our response to the "Recommendations for Authors" is listed first, followed by our responses to all "Public Review" comments as follows:

(Recommendations For The Authors):

1. The methods used in key experiments should be described in more detail. For example, in the section on ‘Conversion of GO-ATeam2 fluorescence to ATP concentration’, the knock-in strategy for GO-ATeam2 should be described, as well as U-13C6 -glucose tracer assays.

As per your recommendation, we have described the key experimental method in more detail in the revised manuscript: the GO-ATeam2 knock-in method was reported by Yamamoto et al. 1. Briefly, they used a CAG promoter-based knock-in strategy targeting the Rosa26 locus to generate GO-ATeam2 knock-in mice. A description of the method has been added to Methods and the reference has been added to the citation.

For the U-13C6-glucose tracer analysis, the following points were added to describe the details of the analysis: First, a note was added that the number of cells used for the in vitro tracer analysis was the number of cells used for each sample. Second, we added the solution from which the cells were collected by sorting. We added that the incubation was performed under 1% O2 and 5% CO2.

1. Confusing image label of Supplemental Figure 1H should be corrected in line 253.

We have corrected the incorrect figure caption on line 217 in the revised manuscript to "Supplemental Figure 1N" as you suggested.

1. The percentage of the indicated cell population should also be shown in Figure S1B.

As you indicated, we have included the percentages for each population in Supplemental Figure 1B.

Author response image 1.

Author response image 1.

1. Please pay attention to the small size of the marks in the graph, such as in Figure S1F and so on.

As you indicated, we have corrected the very small text contained in Figure S1F. Similar corrections have been made to Figures S1B and S5A.

1. Please pay attention to the label of line in Figure S6A-D.

Thank you very much for the advice. We have added line labels to the graph in the original Figures S6A–D.

(Specific comments)

1. Based on previous reports, the authors expanded the LSK gate to include as many HSCs as possible (Supplemental Figure 1B). However, while they showed the gating strategy on Day 6 after 5-FU treatment, results from other time-points should also be displayed to ensure the strict selection of time-points.

Thank you for pointing this out. First, we did not enlarge the Sca-1 gating in this study. We apologize for any confusion caused by the incomplete description. The gating of c-Kit is based on that shown by Umemoto et al (Figure EV1A) 2, who used 250 mg/kg 5-FU, so their c-Kit reduction is more pronounced than ours.

We followed this study and compared c-Kit expression in Lin-Sca-1+CD150+CD48-EPCR+ gates to BMMNCs on day 6 after 5-FU administration (150 mg/kg). The results are shown below.

Author response image 2.

Author response image 2.

Since the MFI of c-Kit was downregulated, we used gating that extended the c-Kit gate to lower-expression regions on day 6 after 5-FU administration (revised Figure S1C).At other time points, LSK gating was the same as in the PBS-treated group, as noted in the Methods.

1. In Figure 1, the authors examined the metabolite changes on Day 6 after 5-FU treatment. However, it is important to consider whether there are any dynamic adjustments to metabolism during the early and late stages of 5-FU treatment in HSCs compared to PBS treatment, in order to coordinate cell homeostasis despite no significant changes in cell cycle progression at other time-points.

Thank you for pointing this out. Below are the results of the GO-ATeam2 analysis during the very early phase (day 3) and late phase (day 15) after 5-FU administration (revised Figures S7A–H).

Author response image 3.

Author response image 3.

In the very early phase, such as day 3 after 5-FU administration, cell cycle progression had not started (Figure S1C) and was not preceded by metabolic changes. Meanwhile, in the late phase, such as day 15 after 5-FU administration, the cell cycle and metabolism returned to a steady state. In summary, the timing of the metabolic changes coincided with that of cell cycle progression. This point is essential for discussing the cell cycle-dependent metabolic system of HSCs and has been newly included in the Results (page 11, lines 321-323).

1. As is well known, ATP can be produced through various pathways, including glycolysis, the TCA cycle, the PPP, NAS, lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism and so on. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether treatment with 5-FU or oligomycin affects these other metabolic pathways in HSCs.

As the reviewer pointed out, ATP production by systems other than the glycolytic system of HSCs is also essential. In this revised manuscript, we examined the effects of the FAO inhibitor (Etomoxir, 100 µM) and the glutaminolysis inhibitor 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON, 2mM) alone or in combination on the ATP concentration of HSCs after PBS or 5-FU treatment. As shown below, there was no apparent decrease in ATP concentration (revised Figures S7J–M).

Author response image 4.

Author response image 4.

Fatty acid β-oxidation activity was also measured in 5-FU-treated HSCs using the fluorescent probe FAOBlue and was unchanged compared to PBS-treated HSCs (revised Figure S7N).

Author response image 5.

Author response image 5.

Notably, the addition of 100 µM etomoxir plus glucose and PFKFB3 inhibitors resulted in a rapid decrease in ATP concentration in HSCs (revised Figures S7O–P). This indicates that etomoxir partially mimics the effect of oligomycin, suggesting that at a steady state, OXPHOS is driven by FAO, but can be compensated by the acceleration of the glycolytic system by PFKFB3. Meanwhile, the exposure of HSCs to PFKFB3 inhibitors in addition to 2 mM DON, which is an extremely high dose considering that the Ki value of DON for glutaminase is 6 µM, did not reduce ATP (revised Figures S7O–P). This suggests that ATP production from glutaminolysis is limited in HSCs at a steady state.

Author response image 6.

Author response image 6.

These points suggest that OXPHOS is driven by fatty acids at a steady state, but unlike the glycolytic system, FAO is not further activated by HSCs after 5-FU treatment. The results of these analyses and related descriptions are included in the revised manuscript (page 11, lines 332-344).

1. In part 2, they showed that oligomycin treatment of HSCs exhibited activation of the glycolytic system, but what about the changes in ATP concentration under oligomycin treatment? Are other metabolic systems affected by oligomycin treatment?

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. The relevant results we have obtained so far with the GO-ATeam2 system are as follows: First, OXPHOS inhibition in the absence of glucose significantly decreases the ATP concentration of HSCs (Figure 4C). Meanwhile, OXPHOS inhibition in the presence of glucose maintains the ATP concentration of HSCs (Figure 5B). Since it is difficult to imagine a completely glucose-free environment in vivo, it is thought that ATP concentration is maintained by the acceleration of the glycolytic system even under hypoxic or other conditions that inhibit OXPHOS.

Meanwhile, glucose tracer analysis shows that OXPHOS inhibition suppresses nucleic acid synthesis (NAS) except for the activation of the glycolytic system (Figures 2C–F). This is because phosphate groups derived from ATP are transferred to nucleotide mono-/di-phosphate in NAS, but OXPHOS, the main source of ATP production, is impaired, along with the enzyme conjugated with OXPHOS in the process of NAS (dihydroorotate dehydrogenase, DHODH). We have added a new paragraph in the Discussion section (page 17, lines 511-515) to provide more insight to the reader by summarizing and discussing these points.

1. In Figure 5M, it would be helpful to include a control group that was not treated with 2-DG. Additionally, if Figure 5L is used as the control, it is unclear why the level of ATP does not show significant downregulation after 2-DG treatment. Similarly, in Figure 5O, a control group with no glucose addition should be included.

Thank you for your advice. The experiments corresponding to the control groups in Figures 5M and O were in Figures 5L and N, respectively, but we have combined them into one graph (revised Figures 5L–M). The results more clearly show that Pfkfb3 overexpression enhances sensitivity to 2-DG, but also enhances glycolytic activation upon oligomycin administration.

Author response image 7.

Author response image 7.

1. In this study, their findings suggest that PFKFB3 is required for glycolysis of HSCs under stress, including transplantation. In Figure 7B, the results showed that donor-derived chimerism in PB cells decreased relative to that in the WT control group during the early phase (1 month post-transplant) but recovered thereafter. Although the transplantation cell number is equal in two groups of donor cells, it is unclear why the donor-derived cell count decreased in the 2-week post-transplantation period and recovered thereafter in the Pfkgb3 KO group. Therefore, they should provide an explanation for this. Additionally, they only detected the percentage of donor-derived cells in PB but not from BM, which makes it difficult to support the argument for Increasing the HSPC pool.

As pointed out by the reviewer, it is interesting to note that the decrease in peripheral blood chimerism in the Pfkfb3 knockout is limited to immediately after transplantation and then catches up with the control group (Figure 7B). We attribute this to the fact that HSPC proliferation is delayed immediately after transplantation in Pfkfb3 deficiency, but after a certain time, PB cells produced by the delayed proliferating HSPCs are supplied. In support of this, the Pfkfb3 knockout HSPCs did not exhibit increased cell death after transplantation (Figure 7K), while a delayed cell cycle was observed (Figures 7G–J). A description of this point has been added to the Discussion (page 19, lines 573-579).

In addition, the knockout efficiency in bone marrow cells could not be verified because the number of cells required for KO efficiency analysis was not available. Therefore, we have added a statement on this point and have toned down our overall claim regarding the extent to which PFKFB3 is involved in the expansion of the HSPC pool (page 15, lines 474-476).

1. In Figure 7E, they collected the BM reconstructed with Pfkfb3- or Rosa-KO HSPCs two months after transplantation, and then tested their resistance to 5-FU. However, the short duration of the reconstruction period makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the effects on steady-state blood cell production.

We agree that we cannot conclude from this experiment alone that PFKFB3 is completely unnecessary in steady state because, as you pointed out, the observation period of the experiment in Figure 7E is not long. We have toned down the claim by stating that PFKFB3 is only less necessary in steady-state HSCs compared to proliferative HSCs (page 15, lines 460-461).

1. PFK is allosterically activated by PFKFB, and other members of the PFKFB family could also participate in the glycolytic program. Therefore, they should investigate their function in contributing to glycolytic plasticity in HSCs during proliferation. Additionally, they should also analyze the protein expression and modification levels of other members. Although PFKFB3 is the most favorable for PFK activation, the role of other members should also be explored in HSC cell cycling to provide sufficient reasoning for choosing PFKFB3.

To further justify why we chose PFKFB3 among the PFKFB family members, we reviewed our data and the publicly available Gene Expression Commons (GEXC) 3. PFKFB3 is the most highly expressed member of the PFKFB family in HSCs (revised Figure 4F), and its expression increases with proliferation (Author response image 9). In addition to this, we have also cited the literature 4 indicating that AZ PFKFB3 26 is a PFKFB3-specific inhibitor that we used in this paper, and added a note to this point (that it is specific) (page 11, lines 327-329). Through these revisions, we sought to strengthen the rationale for Pfkfb3 as the primary target of the analysis.

Author response image 9.

Author response image 9.

Author response image 8.

Author response image 8.

1. In this study, the authors identified PRMT1 as the upstream regulator of PFKFB3 that is involved in the glycolysis activation of HSCs. However, PRMT1 is also known to participate in various transcriptional activations. Thus, it is important to determine whether PRMT1 affects glycolysis through transcriptional regulation or through its direct regulation of PFKFB3? Additionally, the authors should investigate whether PRMT1i inhibits ATP production in normal HSCs. Moreover, could we combine Figure 6I and 6J for analysis. Finally, the authors could conduct additional rescue experiments to demonstrate that the effect of PRMT1 inhibitors on ATP production can be rescued by overexpression of PFKFB3.

Although PRMT1 inhibition reduced m-PFKFB3 levels in HSCs, 5-FU treatment also reduced or did not alter Pfkfb3 transcript levels (Figures 6B, G) and the expression of genes such as Hoxa7/9/10, Itga2b, and Nqo1, which are representative transcriptional targets of PRMT1, in proliferating HSCs after 5-FU treatment (revised Figure S9).

Author response image 10.

Author response image 10.

These results suggest that PRMT1 promotes PFKFB3 methylation, which increases independently of transcription in HSCs after 5-FU treatment.

A summary analysis of the original Figures 6I and 6J is shown below (revised Figure 6I).

Author response image 11.

Author response image 11.

Finally, we tested whether the inhibition of the glycolytic system and the decrease in ATP concentration due to PRMT1 inhibition could be rescued by the retroviral overexpression of PFKFB3. We found that PFKFB3 overexpression did not decrease the ATP concentration in HSCs due to PRMT1 inhibition (revised Figure 6J). Therefore, PFKFB3 overexpression mitigated the decrease in ATP concentration caused by PRMT1 inhibition. These data and related statements have been added to the revised manuscript (page 14, lines 427-428).

Author response image 12.

Author response image 12.

Reviewer #2:

In the manuscript Watanuki et al. want to define the metabolic profile of HSCs in stress/proliferative (myelosuppression with 5-FU), and mitochondrial inhibition and homeostatic conditions. Their conclusions are that during proliferation HSCs rely more on glycolysis (as other cell types) while HSCs in homeostatic conditions are mostly dependent on mitochondrial metabolism. Mitochondrial inhibition is used to demonstrate that blocking mitochondrial metabolism results in similar features of proliferative conditions.

The authors used state-of-the-art technologies that allow metabolic readout in a limited number of cells like rare HSCs. These applications could be of help in the field since one of the major issues in studying HSCs metabolism is the limited sensitivity of the“"standard”" assays, which make them not suitable for HSC studies.

However, the observations do not fully support the claims. There are no direct evidence/experiments tackling cell cycle state and metabolism in HSCs. Often the observations for their claims are indirect, while key points on cell cycle state-metabolism, OCR analysis should be addressed directly.

We sincerely appreciate the reviewer's constructive comments. Thank you for highlighting the importance of the highly sensitive metabolic assay developed in this study and the findings based on it. Meanwhile, the reviewer's comments have made us aware of areas where we can further improve this manuscript. In particular, in the revised manuscript, we have performed further studies to demonstrate the link between the cell cycle and metabolic state. Specifically, we further subdivided HSCs by the uptake of in vivo-administered 2-NBDG and performed cell cycle analysis. Next, HSCs after PBS or 5-FU treatment were analyzed by a Mito Stress test using the Seahorse flux analyzer, including ECAR and OCR, and a more direct relationship between the cell cycle state and the metabolic system was found. We believe that the reviewer's valuable suggestions have helped us clarify more directly the importance of the metabolic state of HSCs in response to cell cycle and stress that we wanted to show and emphasize the usefulness of the GO-ATeam2 system. Our response to "Recommendations For The Authors" is listed first, followed by our responses to all comments in "Public Review" as follows:

(Recommendations For The Authors):

In general, I believe it would be important:

1. to directly associate cell cycle state with metabolic state. For example, by sorting HSC (+/- 5FU) based on their cell cycle state (exploiting the mouse model presented in the manuscript or by defining G0/G1/G2-S-M via Pyronin/Hoechst staining which allow to sort live cells) and follow the fate of radiolabeled glucose.

Thank you for raising these crucial points. Unfortunately, it was difficult to perform the glucose tracer analysis by preparing HSCs with different cell cycle states as you suggested due to the amount of work involved. In particular, in the 5-FU group, more than 60 mice per group were originally required for an experiment, and further cell cycle-based purification would require many times that number of mice, which we felt was unrealistic under current technical standards. As an alternative, we administered 2-NBDG to mice and fractionated HSCs at the 2-NBDG fluorescence level for cell cycle analysis. The results are shown below (revised Figure S1M). Notably, even in the PBS-treated group, HSCs with high 2-NBDG uptake were more proliferative than those with low 2-NBDG uptake and are comparable to HSCs after 5-FU treatment, although the overall population of HSCs exiting the G0 phase and entering the G1 phase increased after 5-FU treatment. In both PBS/5-FU-treated groups, these large differences in cell cycle glucose utilization suggest a direct link between HSC proliferation and glycolysis activation. If a more sensitive type of glucose tracer analysis becomes available in the future, it may be possible to directly address the reviewer's comments. We see this as a topic for the future. The descriptions of the above findings and perspectives have been added to the Results and Discussion section (page 7, lines 208-214, page 20, lines 607-610).

Author response image 13.

Author response image 13.

1. Use other radio labeled substrates (fatty acid, glutamate)

Thank you very much for your suggestion. While this is an essential point for future studies, we believe it is not the primary focus of the paper. We are planning another research project on tracer analysis using labeled fatty acids and glutamates, which we will report on in the near future. We have clearly stated in the Abstract and Introduction of the revised manuscript, that the focus of this study is on changes in glucose metabolism when HSCs are stressed (page 3, line 75 and 87, page 5, lines 135).

Instead, we added the following analyses of metabolic changes in fatty acids and glutamate using the GO-ATeam2 system. HSCs derived from GO-ATeam2 mice treated with PBS or 5-FU were used to measure changes in ATP concentrations after exposure to the fatty acid beta-oxidation (FAO) inhibitor etomoxir and the glutaminolysis inhibitor 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON). Etomoxir was used at 100 µM, a concentration that inhibits FAO without inhibiting mitochondrial electron transfer complex I, as previously reported 5. DON was used at 2 mM, a concentration that sufficiently inhibits the enzyme as the Ki for glutaminase is 6 µM. In this experiment, etomoxir alone, DON alone, or etomoxir and DON in combination did not decrease the ATP concentration of HSCs in the PBS and 5-FU groups (revised Figures S7J–M), suggesting that FAO and glutaminolysis were not essential for ATP production in HSCs in the short term. Thus, according to the analysis using the GO-Ateam2 system, HSCs exposed to acute stresses change the efficiency of glucose utilization (accelerated glycolytic ATP production) rather than other energy sources. Since there are reports that FAO and glutaminolysis are required for HSC maintenance in the long term 5,6, compensatory pathways may be able to maintain ATP levels in the short term. A description of these points has been added to the Discussion (page 11, lines 332-344).

Author response image 14.

Author response image 14.

1. Include OCR analyses.

In addition to the ECAR data of the Mito Stress test (original Figures 2G–H), OCR data were added to the revised manuscript (revised Figures 2H, S3D). Compared to c-Kit+ myeloid progenitors (LKS- cells), HSC showed a similar increase in ECAR, while the decrease in OCR was relatively limited. A possible explanation for this is that glycolytic and mitochondrial metabolism are coupled in c-Kit+ myeloid progenitors, whereas they are decoupled in HSCs. This is also suggested by the glucose plus oligomycin experiment in Figures 5B, C, and S6A–D (orange lines). In summary, in HSCs, glycolytic and mitochondrial ATP production are decoupled and can maintain ATP levels by glycolytic ATP production alone, whereas in progenitors including GMPs, the two ATP production systems are constantly coupled, and glycolysis alone cannot maintain ATP concentration. We have added descriptions of these points in the Results and Discussion section (page 8, lines 240-243, page 18, lines 558-561).

Author response image 15.

Author response image 15.

Next, a Mito Stress test was performed using HSCs derived from PBS- or 5-FU-treated mice in the presence or absence of oligomycin (revised Figures 1G–H, S3A–B). Without oligomycin treatment, ECAR in 5-FU-treated HSCs was higher than in PBS-treated HSCs, and OCR was unchanged. Oligomycin treatment increased ECAR in both PBS- and 5-FU-treated HSCs, whereas OCR was unchanged in PBS-treated HSCs, but significantly decreased in 5-FU-treated HSCs. Changes in ECAR in response to oligomycin differed between HSC proliferation or differentiation: ECAR increased in 5-FU-treated HSCs but not in LKS- progenitors (original Figures 2G–H). This suggests a metabolic feature of HSCs in which the coupling of OXPHOS with glycolysis seen in LKS- cells is not essential in HSCs even after cell cycle entry. The results and discussion of this experiment have been added to page 7, lines 194-201 and page 18, lines 558-561.

Author response image 16.

Author response image 16.

1. Correlate proliferation-mitochondrial inhibition-metabolic state

We agree that it is important to clarify this point. First, OXPHOS inhibition and proliferation similarly accelerate glycolytic ATP production with PFKFB3 (Figures 4G, I, and 5F–I). Meanwhile, oligomycin treatment rapidly decreases ATP in HSCs with or without 5-FU administration (Figure 4C). These results suggest that OXPHOS is a major source of ATP production both at a steady state and during proliferation, even though the analysis medium is pre-saturated with hypoxia similar to that in vivo. This has been added to the Discussion section (page 17, lines 520-523).

1. Tune down the claim on HSCs in homeostatic conditions since from the data it seems that HSCs rely more on anaerobic glycolysis.

Thanks for the advice. The original Figures S2C, D, F, and G show that HSC is dependent on the anaerobic glycolytic system even at a steady state, so we have toned down our claims (page 7, lines 192-194).

1. For proliferative HSCs mitochondrial are key. When you block mitochondria with oligomycin there's the biggest drop in ATP.

In the revised manuscript, we have tried to highlight the key findings that you have pointed out. First, we mentioned in the Discussion (page 17, lines 523-525) that previous studies suggested the importance of mitochondria in proliferating HSCs. Meanwhile, the GO-ATeam2 and glucose tracer analyses in this study newly revealed that the glycolytic system activated by PFKFB3 is activated during the proliferative phase, as shown in Figure 4C. We also confirmed that mitochondrial ATP production is vital in proliferating HSCs, and we hope to clarify the balance between ATP-producing pathways and nutrient sources in future studies.

1. To better clarify this point authors, authors should do experiments in hypoxic conditions and compare it to oligomycin treatment and showing that mito-inhibition acts differently on HSCs (considering that all these drugs are toxic for mitochondria and induce rapidly stress responses ex: mitophagy).

We apologize for any confusion caused by not clearly describing the experimental conditions. As pointed out by the reviewer, we also recognize the importance of experiments in a hypoxic environment. All GO-ATeam2 analyses were performed in a medium saturated sufficiently under hypoxic conditions and analyzed within minutes, so we believe that the medium did not become oxygenated (page S5-S6, lines 160-163 in the Methods). Despite being conducted under such hypoxic conditions, the substantial decrease in ATP after oligomycin treatment is intriguing (original Figures 4C, 5B, 5C). The p50 value of mitochondria (the partial pressure of oxygen at which respiration is half maximal) is 0.1 kPa, which is less than 0.1% of the oxygen concentration at atmospheric pressure 7. Thus, biochemically, it is consistent that OXPHOS can maintain sufficient activity even in a hypoxic environment like the bone marrow. We are currently embarking on a study to determine ATP concentration in physiological hypoxic conditions using in vivo imaging within the bone marrow, which we hope to report in a separate project. We have discussed these points, technical limitations, and perspectives in the Discussion section (page 20, lines 610-612).

• In Figure 1 C, D, E and F, the comparison should be done as unpaired t test and the control group should not be 1 as the cells comes from different individuals.

Thank you very much for pointing this out. We have reanalyzed and revised the figures (revised Figures 1C–F)

Author response image 17.

Author response image 17.

• In Figure S2A, the post-sorting bar of 6PG, R5P and S7P are missing.

Metabolites below the detection threshold (post-sorting samples of 6PG, R5P, and S7P) are now indicated as N.D. (not detected) (revised Figure S2A).

Author response image 18.

Author response image 18.

• In the 2NBDG experiments, authors should add the appropriate controls, since it has been shown that 2NBDG cellular uptake do not correctly reflect glucose uptake (Sinclair LV, Immunometabolism 2020) (a cell type dependent variations) thus inhibitors of glucose transporters should be added as controls (cytochalasin B; 4,6-O-ethylidene-a-D-glucose) it would be quite challenging to test it in vivo but it would be sufficient to show that in vitro in the different HSPCs analyzed.

We appreciate the essential technical point raised by the reviewer. In the revised manuscript, we performed a 2-NBDG assay with cytochalasin B and phloretin as negative controls. After PBS treatment, 2-NBDG uptake was higher in 5-FU-treated HSCs compared to untreated HSCs. This increase was inhibited by both cytochalasin B and phloretin. In PBS-treated HSCs, cytochalasin B did not downregulate 2-NBDG uptake, whereas phloretin did. Although cytochalasin B inhibits glucose transporters (GLUTs), it is also an inhibitor of actin polymerization. Therefore, its inhibitory effect on GLUTs may be weaker than that of phloretin. We have revised the figure (revised Figure S1L) and added the corresponding description (page 7, lines 207-208).

Author response image 19.

Author response image 19.

• S5C: authors should show the cell number for each population. If there's a decreased in % in Lin- that will be reflected in all HSPCs. Comparing the proportion of the cells doesn't show the real impact on HSPCs.

Thank you for your insightful point. In the revision, we compared the numbers, not percentages, of HSPCs and found no difference in the number of cells in the major HSPC fractions in Lin-. The figure has been revised (revised Figure S6C) and the corresponding description has been added (page 10, lines 296-299).

Author response image 20.

Author response image 20.

Minor:

1. In S1 F-G is not indicated in which day post 5FU injection is done the analysis. I assume on day 6 but it should be indicated in the figure legend and/or text.

Thank you for pointing this out. As you assumed, the analysis was performed on day 6. The description has been added to the legend of the revised Figure S1G.

1. S1K is not described in the text. What are proliferative and quiescence-maintaining conditions? The analyses are done by flow using LKS SLAM markers after culture? How long was the culture?

Thank you for your comments. First, the figure citation on line 250 was incorrect and has been corrected to Figure S1N. Regarding the proliferative and quiescence-maintaining conditions, we have previously reported on these 8. In brief, these are culture conditions that maintain HSC activity at a high level while allowing for the proliferation or maintenance of HSCs in quiescence, achieved by culturing under fatty acid-rich, hypoxic conditions with either high or low cytokine concentrations. Analysis was performed after one week of culture, with the HSC number determined by flow cytometry based on the LSK-SLAM marker. While these are mentioned in the Methods section, we have added a description in the main text to highlight these points for the reader (page 7, lines 214-217).

1. In Figure 5G, why does the blue line (PFKFB3 inhibitor) go up in the end of the real-time monitoring? Does it mean that other compensatory pathway is turned on?

As you have pointed out, we cannot rule out the possibility that other unknown compensatory ATP production pathways were activated. We have added a note in the Discussion section to address this (page 18, lines 555-556).

1. In Figure S6H&J, the reduction is marginal. Does it mean that PKM2 is not important for ATP production in HSCs?

The activity of the inhibitor is essential in the GO-ATeam2 analysis. The commercially available PKM2 inhibitors have a higher IC50 value (IC50 = 2.95 μM in this case). Nevertheless, the effect of reducing the ATP concentration was observed in progenitor cells, but not in HSCs. The report by Wang et al. 9 on the analysis using a PKM2-deficient model suggests a stronger effect on progenitor cells than on HSCs. Our results are similar to those of the previous report.

(Specific comments)

Specifically, there are several major points that rise concerns about the claims:

1. The gating strategy to select HSCs with enlarged Sca1 gating is not convincing. I understand the rationale to have a sufficient number of cells to analyze, however this gating strategy should be applied also in the control group. From the FACS plot seems that there are more HSCs upon 5FU treatment (Figure S1b). How that is possible? Is it because of the 20% more of cycling cells at day 6? To prove that this gating strategy still represents a pure HSC population, authors should compare the blood reconstitution capability of this population with a "standard" gated population. If the starting population is highly heterogeneous then the metabolic readout could simply reflect cell heterogeneity.

Thank you for pointing this out. First, we did not enlarge the Sca-1 gating in this study. We apologize for any confusion caused by the incomplete description. The gating of c-Kit is based on that shown by Umemoto et al (Figure EV1A) 2, who used 250 mg/kg 5-FU, so their c-Kit reduction is more pronounced than ours.

We followed this study and compared c-Kit expression in the Lin-Sca-1+CD150+CD48-EPCR+ gates to BMMNCs on day 6 after 5-FU administration (150 mg/kg). The results are shown below.

Author response image 21.

Author response image 21.

Since the MFI of c-Kit was downregulated, we used gating that extended the c-Kit gate to lower expression regions on day 6 after 5-FU administration (revised Figure S1C).

At other time points, LSK gating was the same as in the PBS-treated group, as noted in the Methods.

The reason why the number of HSCs appears to be higher in the 5-FU group is because most of the differentiated blood cells were lost due to 5-FU administration and the same number of cells as in the PBS group were analyzed by FACS, resulting in a relatively higher number of HSCs. The legend of Figure S1 shows that the number of HSCs in both the PBS and 5-FU groups appeared to increase because the same number of BMMNCs was obtained at the time of analysis (page S22, lines 596-598).

Regarding cellular heterogeneity, from a metabolic point of view, the heterogeneity in HSCs is rather reduced by 5-FU administration. As shown in Figure S3A–C, this is simulated under stress conditions, such as after 5-FU administration or during OXPHOS inhibition, where the flux variability in each enzymatic reaction is significantly reduced. GO-ATeam2 analysis after 5-FU treatment showed no increase in cell population variability. After 2-DG treatment, ATP concentrations in HSCs were widely distributed from 0 mM to 0.8 mM in the PBS group, while more than 80% of those in the 5-FU group were less than 0.4 mM (Figures 4B, D). HSCs may have a certain metabolic diversity at a steady state, but under stress conditions, they may switch to a more specialized metabolism with less cellular heterogeneity in order to adapt.

1. S2 does not show major differences before and after sorting. However, a key metabolite like Lactate is decreased, which is also one of the most present. Wouldn't that mean that HSCs once they move out from the hypoxic niche, they decrease lactate production? Do they decrease anaerobic glycolysis? How can quiescent HSC mostly rely on OXPHOS being located in hypoxic niche?

1. Since HSCs in the niche are located in hypoxic regions of the bone marrow, would that not mimic OxPhos inhibition (oligomycin)? Would that not mean that HSCs in the niche are more glycolytic (anaerobic glycolysis)?

1. In Figure 5B, the orange line (Glucose+OXPHOS inhibition) remains stable, which means HSCs prefer to use glycolysis when OXPHOS is inhibited. Which metabolic pathway would HSCs use under hypoxic conditions? As HSCs resides in hypoxic niche, does it mean that these steady-state HSCs prefer to use glycolysis for ATP production? As mentioned before, mitochondrial inhibition can be comparable at the in vivo condition of the niche, where low pO2 will "inhibit" mitochondria metabolism.

Thank you for the first half of comment 2 on the technical features of our approach. First, as you have pointed out, there is minimal variation and stable detection of many metabolites before and after sorting (Figure S2A), suggesting that isolation from the hypoxic niche and sorting stress do not significantly alter metabolite detection performance. This is consistent with a previous report by Jun et al. 10. Meanwhile, lactate levels decreased by sorting. Therefore, if the activity of anaerobic glycolysis was suppressed in stressed HSCs, it may be difficult to detect these metabolic changes with our tracer analysis. However, in this study, several glycolytic metabolites, including an increase in lactate, were detected in HSCs from 5-FU-treated mice compared with HSCs from PBS-treated mice that were similarly sorted and prepared, suggesting an increase in glycolytic activity. In other words, we may have been fortunate to detect the stress-induced activation of the glycolytic system beyond the characteristic of our analysis system that lactate levels tend to appear lower than they are. Given that damage to the bone marrow hematopoiesis tends to alleviate the low-oxygen status of the niche 11, we postulate that this upregulated aerobic glycolysis arises intrinsically in HSCs rather than from external conditions.

The second half of comment 2, and comments 7 and 10, are essential and overlapping comments and will be answered together. Although genetic analyses have shown that HSCs produce ATP by anaerobic glycolysis in low-oxygen environments 9,12, our GO-ATeam2 analysis in this study confirmed that HSCs also generate ATP via mitochondria. This is also supported by Ansó's prior findings where the knockout of the Rieske iron–sulfur protein (RISP), a constituent of the mitochondrial electron transport chain, impairs adult HSC quiescence and bone marrow repopulation 13. Bone marrow is a physiologically hypoxic environment (9.9–32.0 mmHg 11). However, the p50 value of mitochondria (the partial pressure of oxygen at which respiration is half maximal) is below 0.1% oxygen concentration at atmospheric pressure (less than 1 mmHg) 7. This suggests that OXPHOS can retain sufficient activity even under physiologically hypoxic conditions. We are currently initiating efforts to discern ATP concentrations in vivo within the bone marrow under physiological hypoxia. This will be reported in a separate project in the future. Admittedly, when we began this research, we did not anticipate the significant mitochondrial reliance of HSCs. As we previously reported, the metabolic uncoupling of glycolysis and mitochondria 12 may enable HSCs to activate only glycolysis, and not mitochondria, under stress conditions such as post-5-FU administration, suggesting a unique metabolic trait of HSCs. We have included these technical limitations and perspectives in the Discussion section (page 17, lines 520-523).

1. The authors performed challenging experiments to track radiolabeled glucose, which are quite remarkable. However, the data do not fully support the conclusions. Mitochondrial metabolism in HSCs can be supported by fatty acid and glutamate, thus authors should track the fate of other energy sources to fully discriminate the glycolysis vs mito-metabolism dependency. From the data on S2 and Fig1 1C-F, the authors can conclude that upon 5FU treatment HSCs increase glycolytic rate.

1. FIG.2B-C: Increase of Glycolysis upon oligomycin treatment is common in many different cell types. As explained before, other radiolabeled substrates should be used to understand the real effect on mitochondria metabolism.

Thank you for your suggestion. While this is essential for future studies, we believe it is not the primary focus of the paper. We are planning another research project on tracer analysis using labeled fatty acids and glutamates, which we will report on in the near future. We have clearly stated in the Abstract and Introduction of the revised manuscript that the focus of this study is on changes in glucose metabolism when HSCs are stressed (page 3, line 75 and 87, page 5, lines 135).

Instead, we have added the following analyses of metabolic changes in fatty acids and glutamate using the GO-ATeam2 system: HSCs derived from GO-ATeam2 mice treated with PBS or 5-FU were used to measure changes in ATP concentrations after exposure to the fatty acid beta-oxidation (FAO) inhibitor etomoxir and the glutaminolysis inhibitor 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON). Etomoxir was used at 100 µM, a concentration that inhibits FAO without inhibiting mitochondrial electron transfer complex I, as previously reported 5. DON was used at 2 mM, a concentration that sufficiently inhibits the enzyme as the Ki for glutaminase is 6 µM. In this experiment, etomoxir alone, DON alone, or etomoxir and DON in combination did not decrease the ATP concentration of HSCs in the PBS and 5-FU groups (revised Figures S7J–M), suggesting that FAO and glutaminolysis were not essential for ATP production in HSCs in the short term. Thus, according to the analysis using the GO-Ateam2 system, HSCs exposed to acute stresses change the efficiency of glucose utilization (accelerated glycolytic ATP production) rather than other energy sources. Since there are reports that FAO and glutaminolysis are required for HSC maintenance in the long term 5,6, compensatory pathways may be able to maintain ATP levels in the short term. A description of these points has been added to the Discussion (page 17, lines 525-527).

Author response image 22.

Author response image 22.

Fatty acid β-oxidation activity was also measured in 5-FU-treated HSCs using the fluorescent probe FAOBlue and was unchanged compared to PBS-treated HSCs (revised Figure S7N).

Author response image 23.

Author response image 23.

Notably, the addition of 100 µM etomoxir plus glucose and PFKFB3 inhibitors resulted in a rapid decrease in ATP concentration in HSCs (revised Figures S7O–P). This indicates that etomoxir partially mimics the effect of oligomycin, suggesting that at a steady state, OXPHOS is driven by FAO, but can be compensated by the acceleration of the glycolytic system by PFKFB3. Meanwhile, the exposure of HSCs to PFKFB3 inhibitors in addition to 2 mM DON did not reduce ATP (revised Figures S7O–P). This suggests that ATP production from glutaminolysis is limited in HSCs at a steady state.

Author response image 24.

Author response image 24.

These points suggest that OXPHOS is driven by fatty acids at a steady state, but unlike the glycolytic system, FAO is not further activated by HSCs after 5-FU treatment. The results of these analyses and related descriptions are included in the revised manuscript (page 11, lines 332-344).

1. In Figure S1, 5-FU leads to the induction of cycling HSCs and in figure 1, 5-FU results in higher activation of glycolysis. Would it be possible to correlate these two phenotypes together? For example, by sorting NBDG+ cells and checking the cell cycle status of these cells?

We appreciate the reviewer’s insightful comments. We administered 2-NBDG to mice and fractionated HSCs at the 2-NBDG fluorescence level for cell cycle analysis. The results are shown below (revised Figure S1M). Notably, even in the PBS-treated group, HSCs with high 2-NBDG uptake were more proliferative than HSCs with low 2-NBDG uptake and were comparable to HSCs after 5-FU treatment, although the overall population of HSCs that exited the G0 phase and entered the G1 phase increased after 5-FU treatment. In both PBS/5-FU-treated groups, these profound differences in cell cycle glucose utilization suggest a direct link between HSC proliferation and glycolysis activation. Descriptions of the above findings and perspectives have been added to the Results and Discussion section (page 7, lines 208-214, page 20, lines 607-610).

Author response image 25.

Author response image 25.

1. Why are only ECAR measurements (and not OCR measurements) shown? In Fig.2G, why are HSCs compared with cKit+ myeloid progenitors, and not with MPP1? The ECAR increased observed in HSC upon oligomycin treatment is shared with many other types of cells. However, cKit+ cells have a weird behavior. Upon oligo treatment cKit+ cells decrease ECAR, which is quite unusual. The data of both HSCs and cKit+ cells could be clarified by adding OCR curves. Moreover, it is recommended to run glycolysis stress test profile to assess the dependency to glycolysis (Glucose, Oligomycin, 2DG).

In addition to the ECAR data of the Mito Stress test (original Figures 2G–H), OCR data were added in the revised manuscript (revised Figures 2H, S3D). Compared to c-Kit+ myeloid progenitors (LKS- cells), HSC exhibited a similar increase in ECAR, while the decrease in OCR was relatively limited. This may be because glycolytic and mitochondrial metabolism are coupled in c-Kit+ myeloid progenitors, whereas they are decoupled in HSCs. This is also suggested by the glucose plus oligomycin experiment in Figures 5B, C, and S6A–D (orange lines). In summary, in HSCs, glycolytic and mitochondrial ATP production are decoupled and can maintain ATP levels by glycolytic ATP production alone, whereas in progenitors including GMPs, the two ATP production systems are constantly coupled, and glycolysis alone cannot maintain the ATP concentration. While we could not conduct a glycolysis stress test, we believe that PFKFB3-dependent glycolytic activation, which is evident in the oligomycin+glucose+PFKFB3i experiment, is only apparent in HSCs when subjected to glucose+oligomycin treatment (original Figures 5F–I). We have added descriptions of these points in the Results and Discussion section (page 8, lines 240-243, page 18, lines 558-561).

Author response image 26.

Author response image 26.

FIG.3 A-C. As mentioned previously, the flux analyses should be integrated with data using other energy sources. If cycling HSCs are less dependent to OXPHOS, what happen if you inhibit OXHPHOS in 5-FU condition? Since the authors are linking OXPHOS inhibition and upregulation of Glycolysis to increase proliferation, do HSCs proliferate more when treated with oligomycin?

First, please see our response to comments 3 and 5 regarding the first part of this comment about the flux analysis of other energy sources. According to the analysis using the GO-Ateam2 system, stressed HSCs change the efficiency of glucose utilization (accelerated glycolytic ATP production) rather than other energy sources. The change in ATP concentration after OXPHOS inhibition for 5-FU-treated HSCs is shown in Figures 4C and E, suggesting that the activity of OXPHOS itself does not increase. HSCs after oligomycin treatment and HSCs after 5-FU treatment are similar in that they activate glycolytic ATP production. However, inhibition of OXPHOS did not induce the proliferation of HSCs (original Figure S1K). This suggests that proliferation activates glycolysis and not that activation of the glycolytic system induces proliferation. This similarity and dissimilarity of glycolytic activation upon proliferation and OXPHOS inhibition is discussed in the Discussion section (page 16-17, lines 505-515).

1. FIG.4 shows that in vivo administration of radiolabeled glucose especially marks metabolites of TCA cycle and Glycolysis. The authors interpret enhanced anaerobic glycolysis, but I am not sure this is correct; if more glycolysis products go in the TCA cycle, it might mean that HSC start engaging mitochondrial metabolism. What do the authors think about that?

Thank you for pointing this out. We believe that the data are due to two differences in the experimental features between in vivo (Figure S5) and in vitro (Figures 1 and S2) tracer analysis. The first difference is that in in vivo tracer analysis, unlike in vitro, all cells can metabolize U-13C6-glucose. Another difference is that after glucose labeling in vivo, it takes approximately 120–180 minutes to purify HSCs to extract metabolites, and processing on ice may result in a gradual progression of metabolic reactions within HSCs. As a result, in vivo tracer analysis may detect an increased influx of labeled carbon derived from U-13C6-glucose into the TCA cycle over an extended period. However, it is difficult to interpret whether this influx of labeled carbon is derived from the direct influx of glycolysis or the re-uptake by HSCs of metabolites that have been metabolized to other metabolites in other cells. Meanwhile, as shown in Figure 4C using the GO-ATeam2 system, ATP production from mitochondria is not upregulated by 5-FU treatment. This suggests that even if the direct influx from glycolysis into the TCA cycle is increased, the rate of ATP production does not exceed that of glycolysis. Despite these technical caveats in interpretation, the results of in vivo and in vitro tracer analyses are considered essential. In particular, we consider the increased labeling of metabolites involved in glycolysis and nucleotide synthesis to be crucial. We have added a discussion of these points, including experimental limitations (page 17-18, lines 530-545).

1. FIG.4: the experimental design is not clear. Are BMNNCs stained and then put in culture? Is it 6-day culture or BMNNCs are purified at day 6 post 5FU? FIG-4B-C The difference between PBS vs 5FU conditions are the most significant; however, the effect of oligomycin in both conditions is the most dramatic one. From this readout, it seems that HSCs are more dependent on mitochondria for energy production both upon 5FU treatment and in PBS conditions.

We apologize for the incomplete description of the experimental details. The experiment involved dispensing freshly stained BMMNC with surface antigens into the medium and immediately subjecting them to flow cytometry analysis. For post-5-FU treatment HSCs, mice were administered with 5-FU (day 1), and freshly obtained BMMNCs were analyzed on day 6. The analysis of HSCs and progenitors was performed by gating each fraction within the BMMNC (original Figure S5A). We have added these details to ensure that readers can grasp these aspects more clearly (page S5, lines 155-158).

As pointed out by the reviewer, we understand that HSCs produce more ATP through OXPHOS. However, ATP production by glycolysis, although limited, is observed under steady-state conditions (post-PBS treatment HSC), and its reliance increases during the proliferation phase (post-5-FU treatment HSC) (original Figures 4B, D). Until now, discussions on energy production in HSCs have focused on either glycolysis or mitochondrial functions. However, with the GO-ATeam2 system, it has become possible for the first time to compare their contributions to ATP production and evaluate compensatory pathways. As a result, it became evident that while OXPHOS is the main source of ATP production, the reliance on glycolysis plastically increases in response to stress. This has led to a better understanding of HSC metabolism. These points are included in the Discussion as well (page 16, lines 479-488).

1. FIG.6H should be extended with cell cycle analyses. There are no differences between 5FU and ctrl groups. If 5FU induces HSCs cycling and increases glycolysis I would expect higher 2-NBDG uptake in the 5FU group. How do the authors explain this?

Thank you for your comments. In the original Figure 6H, we found that 2-NBDG uptake correlated with m-PFKFB3 levels in both the 5-FU and PBS groups. m-PFKFB3 levels remained low in the few HSCs with low 2-NBDG uptake in the 5-FU group.

In the revised manuscript, to directly relate glucose utilization to the cell cycle, we administered 2-NBDG to mice and fractionated HSCs at the 2-NBDG fluorescence level for cell cycle analysis. The results are shown below (revised Figure S1M). Notably, even in the PBS-treated group, HSCs with high 2-NBDG uptake were more proliferative than those with low 2-NBDG uptake and are comparable to HSCs after 5-FU treatment, although the overall population of HSCs that exited the G0 phase and entered the G1 phase increased after 5-FU treatment. The large differences in glucose utilization per cell cycle observed in both PBS/5-FU-treated groups suggest a direct link between HSC proliferation and glycolysis activation. Descriptions of the above findings have been added to the Results and Discussion (page 7, lines 208-214, page 20, lines 607-610).

Author response image 27.

Author response image 27.

1. In S7 the experimental design is not clear. What are quiescent vs proliferative conditions? What does it mean "cell number of HSC-derived colony"? Is it a CFU assay? Then you should show colony numbers. When HSCs proliferate, they need more energy thus inhibition of metabolism will impact proliferation. What happens if you inhibit mitochondrial metabolism with oligomycin?

Regarding the proliferative and quiescence-maintaining conditions, we have previously reported on these 8. In brief, these are culture conditions that maintain HSC activity at a high level while allowing for the proliferation or maintenance of HSCs in quiescence, achieved by culturing under fatty acid-rich, hypoxic conditions with either high or low cytokine concentrations. Analysis was performed after one week of culture, with the HSC number determined by flow cytometry based on the LSK-SLAM marker. While these are mentioned in the Methods section, we have added a description in the main text to highlight these points for the reader (page 7, lines 214-217).

In vitro experiments with the oligomycin treatment of HSCs showed that OXPHOS inhibition activates the glycolytic system, but does not induce HSC proliferation (original Figure S1K). This suggests that proliferation activates glycolysis and not that activation of the glycolytic system induces proliferation. This similarity and dissimilarity of glycolytic activation upon proliferation and OXPHOS inhibition is discussed in the Discussion (page 16-17, lines 505-515).

1. In FIG 7 since homing of HSCs is influenced by the cell cycle state, should be important to show if in the genetic model for PFKFB3 in HSCs there's a difference in homing efficiency.

In response to the reviewer's comments, we knocked out Pfkfb3 in HSPCs derived from Ubc-GFP mice, transplanted 200,000 HSPCs into recipients (C57BL/6 mice) post-8.5Gy irradiation, and harvested the bone marrow of recipients after 16 h to compare homing efficiency (revised Figure S10H). Even with the knockout of Pfkfb3, no significant difference in homing efficiency was detected compared to the control group (Rosa knockout group). These results suggest that the short-term reduction in chimerism due to Pfkfb3 knockout is not due to decreased homing efficiency or cell death by apoptosis (Figure 7K) but a transient delay in cell cycle progression. We have added descriptions regarding these findings in the Results and Discussion sections (page 15, lines 470-471, page 19, lines 576-578).

Author response image 28.

Author response image 28.

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Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Data Citations

    1. Watanuki S, Kobayashi H, Sorimachi Y, Haraguchi M, Tamaki S, Murakami K, Nishiyama A, Tamura T, Takubo K. 2024. Context-Dependent Modification of PFKFB3 in Hematopoietic Stem Cells Promotes Anaerobic Glycolysis and Ensures Stress Hematopoiesis. NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus. GSE260765

    Supplementary Materials

    Figure 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1B–H, K and L.
    Figure 1—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1—figure supplement 1D–F, H, K-N.
    Figure 1—figure supplement 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1—figure supplement 2A–H.
    Figure 1—figure supplement 3—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 1—figure supplement 3A–D.
    Figure 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 2B–H.
    Figure 3—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 3D–L.
    Figure 3—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 3—figure supplement 1D–U.
    Figure 3—figure supplement 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 3—figure supplement 2B–J.
    Figure 4—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 4D–F, I and J.
    Figure 4—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 4—figure supplement 1B, C and I.
    Figure 4—figure supplement 2—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 4—figure supplement 2C, D, G-I, K, M, N and P.
    Figure 5—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 5D, E, H, I, K, L and M.
    elife-87674-fig5-data1.xlsx (322.1KB, xlsx)
    Figure 5—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 5—figure supplement 1F,J-L, Q.
    Figure 6—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 6A–J.
    Figure 6—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 6—figure supplement 1.
    Figure 7—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 7B, C, E, I–K and N.
    Figure 7—figure supplement 1—source data 1. Raw data for Figure 7—figure supplement 1B–D, G, H.
    Supplementary file 1. Custom RPMI medium for culture and ATP analysis.

    Composition of custom RPMI medium for culture (upper) and ATP analysis (lower). “-“ means 0 mg/L.

    elife-87674-supp1.xlsx (14KB, xlsx)
    Supplementary file 2. In vitro tracer analysis for 5-FU-treated HSCs.

    Results of tracer analysis using U-13C6-glucose with HSCs from mice treated with PBS or 5-FU. Each section contains raw data from the glycolytic system, TCA cycle, and P~NAS from top to bottom. Data from three individual experiments are described for each. All values represent average metabolite levels in single HSCs obtained by dividing the metabolite levels detected in HSCs (compared to internal standards) by the number of HSCs used in the analysis.

    elife-87674-supp2.xlsx (13.4KB, xlsx)
    Supplementary file 3. In vitro tracer analysis for oligomycin-treated HSCs.

    Results of tracer analysis using U-13C6-glucose with HSCs treated with DMSO (Oligomycin-) or oligomycin (Oligomycin+). Each section contains raw data from the glycolytic system, TCA cycle, and P~NAS from top to bottom. Data from four individual experiments are described for each. All values represent average metabolite levels in single HSCs, obtained by dividing the metabolite levels detected in HSCs (compared to internal standards) by the number of HSCs used in the analysis.

    elife-87674-supp3.xlsx (14.5KB, xlsx)
    Supplementary file 4. 13C quantitative metabolic flux analysis.

    Metabolic flux values of each enzyme obtained from 100 trials of 13C quantitative metabolic flux analysis for PBS-treated (left), 5-FU-treated (middle), and OXPHOS-inhibited HSCs (right).

    elife-87674-supp4.xlsx (49KB, xlsx)
    Supplementary file 5. In vivo tracer analysis for 5-FU treated mice.

    Results of tracer analysis during continuous in vivo administration of U-13C6-glucose to mice treated with 5-FU or PBS. A sheet is prepared for each metabolite and each contains two tables. The A.U. table (left) shows the metabolite levels detected in the four biological replicates in the 5-FU and PBS groups, obtained by dividing the metabolite levels detected in HSCs (compared to internal standards) by the number of HSCs used in the analysis. The ratio table (right) shows the calculated percentage of labeled metabolites among detected metabolites, where 12 C indicates unlabeled metabolites and 13Cn indicates n-carbon labeled metabolites by U-13C6-glucose.

    elife-87674-supp5.xlsx (89.6KB, xlsx)
    Supplementary file 6. Primer list for genotyping PCR.
    elife-87674-supp6.xlsx (10.2KB, xlsx)
    MDAR checklist

    Data Availability Statement

    RNA sequence data were deposited in GEO (accession number GSE260765). All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files; source data files have been provided for all figures.

    The following dataset was generated:

    Watanuki S, Kobayashi H, Sorimachi Y, Haraguchi M, Tamaki S, Murakami K, Nishiyama A, Tamura T, Takubo K. 2024. Context-Dependent Modification of PFKFB3 in Hematopoietic Stem Cells Promotes Anaerobic Glycolysis and Ensures Stress Hematopoiesis. NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus. GSE260765


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