Advancements in the study of glucose metabolism in relation to tumor progression and treatment.

Sugar serves as the primary energy source for mammals, with glucose metabolism facilitating energy acquisition in human cells. The proper functioning of intracellular glucose metabolism is essential for the maintenance of orderly and healthy physiological activities. Tumor cells, characterized by uncontrolled growth, exhibit dysregulated proliferation and apoptosis processes, leading to abnormal alterations in glucose metabolism. Specifically, tumor cells exhibit a shift towards aerobic glycolysis, resulting in the production of lactic acid that can be utilized as a metabolic intermediate for sustained tumor cell growth. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the enzymes involved in glucose metabolism and the alterations in gene expression that occur during tumor progression. It also examines the current research on targeting abnormal glucose metabolism processes for tumor treatment and discusses potential future directions for utilizing glucose metabolism as a therapeutic target.

Zhao M ，Chen YL ，Yang LH 《-》

[Regulation of tumor cell glycometabolism and tumor therapy].

Liu G ，Song G 《-》

Targeting the Warburg effect for cancer treatment: Ketogenic diets for management of glioma.

Gliomas are a highly heterogeneous tumor, refractory to treatment and the most frequently diagnosed primary brain tumor. Although the current WHO grading system (2016) demonstrates promise towards identifying novel treatment modalities and better prediction of prognosis over time, to date, existing targeted and mono therapy approaches have failed to elicit a robust impact on disease progression and patient survival. It is possible that tumor heterogeneity as well as specifically targeted agents fail because redundant molecular pathways in the tumor make it refractory to such approaches. Additionally, the underlying metabolic pathology, which is significantly altered during neoplastic transformation and tumor progression, is unaccounted for. With several molecular and metabolic pathways implicated in the carcinogenesis of CNS tumors, including glioma, we postulate that a systemic, broad spectrum approach to produce robust targeting of relevant and multiple molecular and metabolic regulation of growth and survival pathways, critical to the modulation of hallmarks of carcinogenesis, without clinically limiting toxicity, may provide a more sustained impact on clinical outcomes compared to the modalities of treatment evaluated to date. The objective of this review is to examine the emerging hallmark of reprogramming energy metabolism of the tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment during carcinogenesis, and to provide a rationale for exploiting this hallmark and its biological capabilities as a target for secondary chemoprevention and treatment of glioma. This review will primarily focus on interventions to induce ketosis to target the glycolytic phenotype of many cancers, with specific application to secondary chemoprevention of low grade glioma- to halt the progression of lower grade tumors to more aggressive subtypes, as evidenced by reduction in validated intermediate endpoints of disease progression including clinical symptoms.

Poff A ，Koutnik AP ，Egan KM ，Sahebjam S ，D'Agostino D ，Kumar NB ... -  《-》

The Warburg effect: essential part of metabolic reprogramming and central contributor to cancer progression.

Vaupel P ，Schmidberger H ，Mayer A 《-》

Targeting glucose metabolism to suppress cancer progression: prospective of anti-glycolytic cancer therapy.

Most solid tumor cells adapt to their heterogeneous microenvironment by depending largely on aerobic glycolysis for energy production, a phenomenon called the Warburg effect, which is a hallmark of cancer. The altered energy metabolism not only provides cancer cell with ATP for cellular energy, but also generate essential metabolic intermediates that play a pivotal role in the biosynthesis of macromolecules, to support cell proliferation, invasiveness, and chemoresistance. The cellular metabolic reprogramming in cancer is regulated by several oncogenic proteins and tumor suppressors such as hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1), Myc, p53, and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. A better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the regulation of aerobic glycolysis can help in developing glycolytic inhibitors as anticancer agents. These metabolic antiglycolytic agents could be more effective if used in drug combinations to combat cancer. Several preclinical and early clinical studies have shown the effectiveness of targeting the glycolytic pathway as a therapeutic approach to suppress cancer progression. This review aimed to present the most recent data on the emerging drug candidate targeting enzymes and intermediates involved in glucose metabolism to provide therapeutic opportunities and challenges for antiglycolytic cancer therapy.

Abdel-Wahab AF ，Mahmoud W ，Al-Harizy RM 《-》