Comparison of Oxygen Consumption Rates in Minimally Transformed BALB/3T3 and Virus-Transformed 3T3B-SV40 Cells

---

E. I. Leznev^1,2*, I. I. Popova¹, V. P. Lavrovskaja^1,2, and Y. V. Evtodienko³

¹Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Institutskaya 3, 142290 Pushchino, Moscow Region, Russia; fax: +7 (4967) 330-553; E-mail: office@iteb.ru; leznev1@rambler.ru

²Pushchino State Natural Science Institute, pr. Nauki 3, 142290 Pushchino, Moscow Region, Russia; fax: +7 (4967) 732-711; E-mail: nir_pushgu@itaec.ru

³Evik Diagnostics, Ottawa, Canada; E-mail: evtodienko@msn.com

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received December 13, 2012; Revision received February 11, 2013

---

In the recent years, bioenergetics of tumor cells and particularly cell respiration have been attracting great attention because of the involvement of mitochondria in apoptosis and growing evidence of the possibility to diagnose and treat cancer by affecting the system of oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria. In the present work, a comparative study of oxygen consumption in 3T3B-SV40 cells transformed with oncovirus SV40 and parental BALB/3T3 cells was conducted. Such fractions of oxygen consumption as “phosphorylating” respiration coupled to ATP synthesis, “free” respiration not coupled to ATP synthesis, and “reserve” or hidden respiration observed in the presence of protonophore were determined. Maximal respiration was shown to be only slightly decreased in 3T3B-SV40 cells as compared to BALB/3T3. However, in the case of certain fractions of cellular respiration, the changes were significant. “Phosphorylating” respiration was found to be reduced to 54% and “reserve” respiration, on the contrary, increased up to 160% in virus-transformed 3T3B-SV40 cells. The low rate of “phosphorylating” respiration and high “reserve” respiration indicate that under normal incubation conditions the larger part of mitochondrial respiratory chains of the virus-transformed cells is in the resting state (i.e. there is no electron transfer to oxygen). The high “reserve” respiration is suggested to play an important role in preventing apoptosis of 3T3B-SV40 cells.

---

KEY WORDS: BALB/3T3 and 3T3B-SV403T3 cell cultures, respirometry, cellular respiration, inhibitors of oxidative phosphorylation, tumor cells, programmed cell death

DOI: 10.1134/S0006297913080063

---