Fig. 5.

LAT2 activates mTOR to regulate apoptosis, glycolysis and gemcitabine sensitivity in pancreatic cancer cells. a, b LAT2 suppressed apoptosis in MIA PaCa-2 cells with LAT2 overexpression, which could be reversed by RAD001; gemcitabine induced apoptosis in MIA PaCa-2 cells, and RAD001 reversed the inhibition of apoptosis induced by gemcitabine in MIA PaCa-2 cells with LAT2 overexpression. c RAD001 increased gemcitabine sensitivity in MIA PaCa-2 cells with LAT2 overexpression. d-g Both ECAR and glycoPER were increased in MIA PaCa-2 and PANC-1 cells with LAT2 overexpression compared with the control cells, and this increase could be reversed by RAD001. h RAD001 downregulated the expression of LDHB and glutamine synthetase in MIA PaCa-2 and PANC-1 cells with LAT2 overexpression; RAD001 downregulated LAT2 expression in PANC-1 cells with LAT2 overexpression. i LAT2 knockout upregulated glutaminase expression, inhibited the mTOR pathway (thereby downregulating p-4EBP1) and downregulated AMPKα1/2 expression; and gemcitabine suppressed the mTOR pathway in PANC-1 cells dependent on LAT2. The data are presented as the mean ± SD. (Student’s t-test; *, P < 0.05)