Fig. 7: NQO1 mediates metabolic remodeling in breast cancer cells.
a, Volcano plot showing the change in metabolic landscape of MDA-LM2 and HCC1806-LM2 cells in response to NQO1 knockdown. Metabolite levels were measured using LC–MS-based metabolic profiling. n = 3 independently treated cell cultures. b, Ratio of surviving NQO1 knockdown to control MDA-LM2 cells after pretreatment for 24 h with 10 µM ubiquinone (CoQ10) or ubiquinol (QH2), followed by treatment for 24 h with 150 µM TBHP. n = 3 independently treated cell cultures. c, UMAP plot generated from single-cell sequencing data in MDA-Par cells. Cells are colored according to relative NQO1 expression. d, qPCR showing the NQO1 expression level of MDA-LM2 cells after treatment with β-lapachone + rucaparib, β-lapachone + rucaparib + erastin or vector control. n = 3 independently treated cell cultures. e, Luciferase fluorescence signal from in vivo lung colonization assay with MDA-Par cells and subsequent treatment with β-lapachone + rucaparib, β-lapachone + rucaparib + IKE or vehicle control. Representative images from each cohort are shown. n = 5 mice per cohort. All P values were calculated using a one-tailed Mann–Whitney U-test.
