CANCER METABOLOMICS
Hey guys, today I will be talking about the possibilities of a perfect cancer therapy that will not have any negative side effects on the subject involved. After reading from scholarly articles and research papers, I found out that it took Otto Heinrich Warburg a long time before he was able to prove that cancer cells were not as a result of defects in the mitochondria, He found out that proliferating cancer cells take in more sugar than the normal growing cells and instead ferment to produce lactose and very little ATP even in the presence of oxygen gas. This was supported by an experiment where sugar was added to pancreatic cells of both a normal cell and cancer cells. The pancreatic cell was expected not to glow in both cases since they hate sugary environments but for the cancer cells, they did radiate. This has since sparked a debate among scientists over the role of respiration and glycolysis in cells.

(Photo from Scientific Reports)

Despite the irregular pattern these cancer cells and tumor cells have, there are hypotheses which try to prove that cells with possible higher rate of ATP production that instead produce lower yields of ATP can have the advantage of competing vigorously as compared to normal proliferating cells. These tumor cells use the acquired lower yields of ATP to convert sugar to DNA, RNA, lipids, proteins and carbohydrates. This favors the proliferation of new cancer cells. A distinct example scientists use to prove the competitiveness of the cancer cells is when they compare the growth pattern of normal cells and cancer/tumor cells in the presence of the M2 form of enzyme pyruvate kinase which is present in both the normal growing cells and the cancer/tumor cells. When pyruvate kinase is kicked out, it is expected that both cells will stop growing but after the results, it only applies to the normal growing cells. Cancer cells have proven to be flexible and what propagates their activities even in harsh conditions is still intriguing to everyone. 

The Warburg theory is clear that cancer cells will always try to find a way to proliferate. They do not necessarily rely on one enzyme, but more than half of the enzymes in our bodies. In order to identify the best procedure for cancer therapy, Dr. Sophia Lunt in her lab think that potential target for cancer therapy are the enzymes in our bodies. Because cancer cells adapt to their micro-environments, they hope that by adapting antimetabolites that mimic biologically active metabolites will attract the enzymes which will bind with them then they will stop the reactions. This way, normal cells won’t be affected in any way and cancer cells will not have enzymes to propagate their activities. The strategy her lab has at hand is to investigate metabolic alterations in specific types of cancers using cancer models and identifying if there could be any side effects to cancer drugs that target metabolism.

Personally, I think there might be a solution if scientists can use the biological gene matching software created by Christopher Voigt. These may enable them to understand the type of genes they are trying to fight and come up with specific targeted therapies to treat cancer cells.I hope you guys enjoyed this post.



1. Jurica M.S et al. The allosteric regulation of pyruvate kinase by fructose-1,6-bisphosphate, Structure 6, 195-210 (1998)

2.  KHeather R. Christofk et al. The M2 slice isoform of pyruvate kinase is important for cancer metabolism and tumour growth. Nature vol. 452|13 March 2008.

3. Mazurek et al. Pyruvate kinase type M2 and its role in tumour growth and spreading. Semin. Cancer biol. 15, 300-308 (2005)

4. Dombrauckas et al. Structural basis for tumor pyruvate kinase M2 allosteric regulation and catalysis. Biochemistry 44, 9417-9429 (2005).



Expery.