Figure 1.

Lactate sustains the growth of oxidative GSCs during glucose deprivation. (A) Schematic representation of the experimental protocol. (B) Relative sphere growth for GSC^gly (GSCA) cells cultured for 7 days in ultralow glucose medium (ULGM) supplemented with the indicated concentrations of lactate. Representative images of the spheres formed in each condition are also presented. Scale bars, 500 µm. (C) Lactate consumption by GSC^mit (GSCB) cells during culture for 96 h in ULGM containing 4 mM lactate. (D–H) Relative sphere growth for GSC^mit cells cultured for 7 days in ULGM supplemented with the indicated concentrations of lactate (D), acetate (E), pyruvate (F), oxaloacetate (G), or citrate, α-ketoglutarate (α-KG), succinate, fumarate, or malate (H). All data are means ± SD from three independent experiments and were evaluated by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Dunnett’s post hoc test. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001. Scheme created with BioRender.com.