Modulating autophagy and the reverse warburg effect

VACCARO, M. INÉS; GONZALEZ, CLAUDIO; ALVAREZ, SILVIA; ROPOLO, ALEJANDRO

Tumor metabolome targeting and drug development

Springer Science

Lugar: UT; Año: 2013;

Autophagy is a major contributor to maintain cellular homeostasis and metabolism. The qualitycontrol of mitochondria is essential to maintain cell energy and this process appearsto be achieved via autophagy. Warburg hypothesized that cancer growth are causedby the fact that tumor cells mainly generate energy by non-oxidative breakdown ofglucose. This cellular behavior relays on a respiratory impairment, characterized bya mitochondrial dysfunction, which results into a switch to glycolysis. Moreover,epithelial cancer cells may induce the Warburg effect in neighboring stromalfibroblasts in which autophagy was activated. Here we introduce to the autophagyprocess, its regulation, the selective pathways and its role in cancer cell metabolism.We define Warburg effect and the “reverse” hypothesis and we discuss the potentialvalue of modulating autophagy. The association of the Warburg effect in tumor andstromal cells to cancer-related autophagy is of significant relevance in experimentaltherapeutics.