The Warburg Effect: How Does it Benefit Cancer Cells?

By Maria Liberti, Jason W. Locasale. TIBS -Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Regular ed, 2016

4,371 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Cancer cells rewire their metabolism to promote growth, survival, proliferation, and long-term maintenance. The common feature of this altered metabolism is increased glucose uptake and fermentation of glucose to lactate. This phenomenon is observed even in the presence of completely functioning mitochondria and together is known as the Warburg Effect. The Warburg Effect has been documented for over 90 years and extensively studied over the past 10 years with thousands of papers reporting to have established either its causes or its functions. Despite this intense interest, the function of the Warburg Effect remains unclear. Here, we analyze several proposed biological explanations for the Warburg Effect, emphasize their rationale, and discuss their controversies.

Subfields: Cancer Research, Molecular Biology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/243cf1813aca23008e7665a6c87c21f85c200580

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cancer Research

1. A. Mayer
2. H. Schmidberger
3. E. Lengyel
4. P. Vaupel
5. Erika L. Pearce

In Molecular Biology

1. Ryuji Hamamoto
2. Yusuke Nakamura
3. E. Lengyel
4. P. Vaupel
5. Erika L. Pearce
6. H. Schmidberger
7. A. Mayer
8. N. Dohmae

In Physiology

1. P. Vaupel
2. Erika L. Pearce

Citations in the corpus

• Glutamine Metabolism in Cancer: Understanding the Heterogeneity (2017, neutral): “In particular, the Warburg effect occurs inmany human tumors, such that positron emission tomography (PET) using the glucose analog (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose is widely used for imaging tumors in the clinic [1,5].”
• Loss of BRCA1 in the cells of origin of ovarian cancer induces glycolysis: A window of opportunity for ovarian cancer chemoprevention (2017, background): “The reliance of cancer cells on aerobic glycolysis, even in the presence of oxygen, is now termed the "Warburg effect" and the reprograming of metabolism in cancer cells has been recognized as a hallmark of cancer (9, 10).”
• Unraveling the Complex Interplay Between T Cell Metabolism and Function (2018, background): “This metabolite allocation allows lipids and other amino acids to be redirected to generate biomass, such as nucleotides for DNA and lipids for membranes, to support cell division and Te cell functions (68, 69).”
• The Warburg effect: essential part of metabolic reprogramming and central contributor to cancer progression (2019, background): “…anticipated by Warburg, his supporters and contemporaries (e.g. DeBerardinis et al. 2008; Vander Heiden et al. 2009; Cairns et al. 2011; Mihaylova and Shaw 2011; Ward and Thompson 2012; Amoedo et al. 2013; Soga 2013; Phan et al. 2014; Liberty and Locasale 2016; Bose and Le 2018; Kato et al. 2018).”