Metabolic Transformations of Malignant Cells: An Overview

It is generally considered that the hallmark studies of Otto Warburg and colleagues reported in 1926 (Warburg et al., 1926) sparked the era of tumor cell metabolism. From that time until around 1980, and especially from 1940–1970, studies of intermediary metabolism of normal and malignant cells were dominant areas of research and graduate and post-graduate training in biomedical sciences. Pursuant to ̃ 1980, the advent, development, and subsequent dominance of molecular genetics, proteomics, and molecular technology in clinical and experimental biomedical application was accompanied by the nearly complete submersion of interest and training in areas of intermediary metabolism and tumor cell metabolism. (The contemporary consequences of this transition are discussed in a following section.) Now a resurging interest in intermediary metabolism along with the development of metabolomics in relation to cancer and other diseases has emerged. This provides a timely reason to revisit some of the important issues of tumor cell metabolism with a perspective of the contemporary associations of genomics/proteomics/metabolomics, coupled with molecular technology; none of which existed during the days of the outstanding biochemists and mitochondriacs of earlier times.