El-Kenawi, et al., 2019, Cancer likes it sour!
In his early work, the great Otto Warburg was the first to describe preference of cancer cells to metabolize glucose into lactate even in the presence of oxygen, a phenomenon termed aerobic glycolysis. Although, aerobic glycolysis is an inefficient way to generate cellular energy (produce 2 ATP molecules) it may provide cancer cells with proliferative privilege more than the normal metabolic pathway, oxidative phosphorylation (produce 36 ATP molecules). The proliferative advantage of glycolytic phenotype may be because:
-It facilitates the uptake and incorporation of nutrients into the growing biomass (Reference).
-The metabolic products of glycolysis, such as hydrogen ions and lactate, cause a heterogeneous but consistent acidification of the extracellular space, which results in harsh conditions that kills normal cells allowing more space for tumor to grow (Gatenby and Gillies, 2004).
In El-Kenawi, et al., 2019, we demonstrated that acids released by cancer cells can convert a type of immune cells called macrophage towards tumor-loving phenotype. Macrophage are multi-functional immune cells and their phenotype can shift depending on their surroundings. Thus, by dumping acids into the extracellular space, cancer cells avoid the tough side of macrophages functionality “being cytotoxic”. Education of macrophages by prostate cancer cells was associated by the release of cytokines and upregulation of CD206, ARG1 and the cholesterol transporter ABCA1. This motivated me to tackle the function of macrophage cholesterol in Next Publication.
