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Cancer cells rewire how they eat. They burn glucose inefficiently but fast (the Warburg effect), gorge on glutamine and fats, and build the nucleotides and lipids needed to divide. This is why the FDG PET scan works, and why metabolism is a drug target.
Oncogenic signalling (PI3K/AKT/mTOR, MYC, HIF) drives aerobic glycolysis and lactate export, glutaminolysis for TCA anaplerosis, de novo lipogenesis (FASN, SCD), and one-carbon metabolism (SHMT, MTHFD2) for nucleotides and methylation. Mutant IDH1/2 produce the oncometabolite 2-HG. Metabolic plasticity lets tumours switch fuels, which is why single-target metabolic drugs (glutaminase inhibitor telaglenastat, negative in RCC) disappoint. Approved metabolic drugs are antimetabolite chemotherapies and IDH inhibitors; arginine deprivation (ADI-PEG20) is in phase 3 in mesothelioma. Diet interventions (fasting-mimicking, ketogenic) are in trials as adjuncts.
A factory that switches from a clean, efficient power plant to burning everything it can find, fast and dirty, because speed matters more than efficiency when you are building a new factory every day.
Shares MYC, MYC, PIK3CA / PI3K-alpha, PI3K / AKT / mTOR and the tag mechanism.
Shares Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, MYC, MYC, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the tag mechanism.
Shares The Francis Crick Institute, Theories of cancer: how the ideas connect, MYC, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the tag mechanism.
Shares Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, MYC, MYC and the tag mechanism.
Shares The Francis Crick Institute, MYC, MYC and the tag mechanism.
Shares The Francis Crick Institute, Theories of cancer: how the ideas connect, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the tag mechanism.
Shares Nutrient competition & metabolic immunosuppression, Theories of cancer: how the ideas connect, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the tag mechanism.
Shares Vorasidenib, Theories of cancer: how the ideas connect, IDH1 / IDH2, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the tag mechanism.