Therapeutic strategies targeting metabolic characteristics of cancer cells
Rilan Bai, Ying Meng, Jiuwei Cui
Abstract
Metabolic reprogramming is one of the important characteristics of cancer and is a key process leading to malignant proliferation, tumor development and treatment resistance. A variety of therapeutic drugs targeting metabolic reaction enzymes, transport receptors, and special metabolic processes have been developed. In this review, we investigate the characteristics of multiple metabolic changes in cancer cells, including glycolytic pathways, lipid metabolism, and glutamine metabolism changes, describe how these changes promote tumor development and tumor resistance, and summarize the progress and challenges of therapeutic strategies targeting various links of tumor metabolism in combination with current study data. • Metabolic enzyme remodeling in cancer cells and the cancer microenvironment together drive the metabolic reprogramming of cancer cells. • Recent studies have highlighted the role of altered glucose metabolism in driving cancer progression, response to cancer therapy, and its unique role in treatment resistance, and therapeutic strategies targeting glycolytic metabolic pathways have emerged. • Cancer cells also rely on high OXPHOS as an energy source, therefore, OXPHOS inhibitors promise to target OXPHOS-dependent tumors and become novel drugs for the treatment of cancer. • Targeting tumor lipid metabolism may hopefully improve the efficacy of anti-tumor therapy and produce synergistic effects with immunotherapy. • In addition, anti-tumor treatment strategies targeting other metabolic changes in tumors are also expected to be an effective means of novel anti-tumor therapies and overcoming drug resistance.