Cancer Metabolism: A Modeling Perspective

Pouyan Ghaffari, Adil Mardinoglu, Jens Nielsen

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

422 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Tumor cells alter their metabolism to maintain unregulated cellular proliferation and survival, but this transformation leaves them reliant on constant supply of nutrients and energy. In addition to the widely studied dysregulated glucose metabolism to fuel tumor cell growth, accumulating evidences suggest that utilization of amino acids and lipids contributes significantly to cancer cell metabolism. Also recent progresses in our understanding of carcinogenesis have revealed that cancer is a complex disease and cannot be understood through simple investigation of genetic mutations of cancerous cells. Cancer cells present in complex tumor tissues communicate with the surrounding microenvironment and develop traits which promote their growth, survival, and metastasis. Decoding the full scope and targeting dysregulated metabolic pathways that support neoplastic transformations and their preservation requires both the advancement of experimental technologies for more comprehensive measurement of omics as well as the advancement of robust computational methods for accurate analysis of the generated data. Here, we review cancer-associated reprogramming of metabolism and highlight the capability of genome-scale metabolic modeling approaches in perceiving a system-level perspective of cancer metabolism and in detecting novel selective drug targets.
Original languageEnglish
Article number382
JournalFrontiers in Physiology
Volume6
Number of pages9
ISSN1664-042X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Bibliographical note

© 2015 Ghaffari, Mardinoglu and Nielsen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Keywords

  • Cancer metabolism
  • Metabolic modeling
  • Systems biology
  • Systems medicine
  • Genome scale metabolic reconstruction
  • Metabolic networks and pathways
  • Tumor metabolism

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Cancer Metabolism: A Modeling Perspective'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this