Tumor bioenergetics: an emerging avenue for cancer metabolism targeted therapy

Abstract

Cell proliferation is a delicately regulated process that couples growth signals and metabolic demands to produce daughter cells. Interestingly, the proliferation of tumor cells immensely depends on glycolysis, the Warburg effect, to ensure a sufficient amount of metabolic flux and bioenergetics for macromolecule synthesis and cell division. This unique metabolic derangement would provide an opportunity for developing cancer therapeutic strategy, particularly when other diverse anti-cancer treatments have been proved ineffective in achieving durable response, largely due to the emergence of resistance. Recent advances in deeper understanding of cancer metabolism usher in new horizons of the next generation strategy for cancer therapy. Here, we discuss the focused review of cancer energy metabolism, and the therapeutic exploitation of glycolysis and OXPHOS as a novel anti-cancer strategy, with particular emphasis on the promise of this approach, among other cancer metabolism targeted therapies that reveal unexpected complexity and context-dependent metabolic adaptability, complicating the development of effective strategies.