Fig. 5

PTEN inhibits Warburg effect and maintains mitochondrial respiration instead of aerobic glycolysis by inhibiting the PI3K pathway in vitro. HHCC cells were transduced with lentiviral vector harboring PTEN (oe-PTEN) with or without the addition of 740 Y-P, a PI3K agonist (activator +oe-PTEN). HHCC cells transduced with lentiviral vector harboring empty vector were served as controls (vector-NC). a, Representative Western blots of Akt, PI3K, and mTOR proteins and their quantitation in HHCC cells, normalized to GAPDH. b, Measurements of acetyl-CoA synthesis, glucose uptake, and lactate production in HHCC cells. c, ECAR and OCR at indicated time points in HHCC cells. * p < 0.05 compared with vector-NC; # p < 0.05 compared with oe-PTEN. Data in (c) were compared by repeated measures ANOVA with Bonferroni corrections and in (a and b) by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s test. Data are shown as mean ± standard deviation of three technical replicates