Glucose Metabolism in Cancer: The Warburg Effect and Beyond

Overview

Journal Adv Exp Med Biol

Specialties Biology
General Medicine

Date 2021 May 20

PMID 34014531

Citations 63

Authors

Sminu Bose

Cissy Zhang

Anne Le

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Otto Warburg observed a peculiar phenomenon in 1924, unknowingly laying the foundation for the field of cancer metabolism. While his contemporaries hypothesized that tumor cells derived the energy required for uncontrolled replication from proteolysis and lipolysis, Warburg instead found them to rapidly consume glucose, converting it to lactate even in the presence of oxygen. The significance of this finding, later termed the Warburg effect, went unnoticed by the broader scientific community at that time. The field of cancer metabolism lay dormant for almost a century awaiting advances in molecular biology and genetics, which would later open the doors to new cancer therapies [2, 3].

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