Zeitschrift für Zellwissenschaft und Therapie
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Cancer Metabolism and Its Therapeutic Implications

Weiqin Lu, Craig D Logsdon and James L Abbruzzese

The goal of cancer therapy is to selectively kill cancer cells without significant adverse toxicity to normal cells. Tremendous progress has been made to understand the molecular mechanisms of cancer and we have realized that cancer cells have remarkable heterogeneity and adaptability, making them difficult to be targeted therapeutically. With the advanced developments in molecular biology and high throughput ‘omics’ technologies, metabolic alteration is revealed as the common feature of human cancer. The activation of oncogenes and/or inactivation of tumor suppressors are found to be important metabolic switch regulators. Some metabolic enzymes in cancer have gained non-enzymatic functions to facilitate tumor growth and adaptation. Metabolic reprogramming of cancer cells not only promotes survival and proliferation but also tolerates stress and induces drug resistance. Therefore, cancer metabolism might be a novel target for cancer therapy. This article reviews current understanding of cancer metabolism with major focus on glucose and glutamine metabolisms and their potential therapeutic implications.