National Cancer Center reveals absolute dependence of fatty acids in cancer cell energy metabolism
Opening the door for a new anticancer strategy targeting fatty acid metabolism
[현대건강신문] There are many people who are on a ‘low carb’, that is, cut down on carbohydrates and go on a high-fat diet. However, a study found that such a diet can make cancer cells grow five times faster.
A new study found that cancer cell energy metabolism is absolutely dependent on fatty acids. The research team of the National Cancer Center (President Hongkwan Seo) opened the door to a new anticancer strategy that changes the paradigm of cancer research with the results of this study.
The cancer metabolism research team at the National Cancer Center (Ph.
The results of this study are attracting global attention as they establish a new concept for cancer cell-specific metabolism and lay the groundwork for the development of new anticancer drugs. The research team published this research result in the latest issue of Seminars in Cancer Biology (Impact Factor 17.012), a world-renowned journal.
The research team found that cancer cells make adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by using oxygen in the mitochondria using fatty acids entirely, unlike normal cells, which mainly use glucose in the energy metabolism process.
It was also confirmed that when fatty acids were blocked in the presence of glucose, ATP rapidly dropped and only cancer cells died.
In addition, through an animal experiment using a mouse cancer model, it was found that the cancer growth in the high-fat diet condition was five times higher than the growth in the low-fat diet (high-carbohydrate diet) in the same calorie-balanced diet.
The result of this study was named the ‘Kim effect’ as a result of comparison with the ‘Warburg effect’, which is the basis of cancer metabolism.
Dr. Warberg found that even under oxygen-rich conditions, the metabolic pathway that converts glucose into lactic acid in cancer cells was abnormally activated. He found that all tumors use glucose to make lactic acid, which he called the Warburg effect. Dr. Warrberg was awarded the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on his teeth. Since then, through many studies, glucose is known to contribute to making bio-building block substances, and it has been found that glucose is a crucially important nutrient for anabolic metabolism in cancer.
The ‘Kim effect’ is that all cancer cells have an absolute dependence on fatty acids for their energy metabolism, that is, cancer cells absolutely gain energy by burning fat in the blood. As fat mobilized for obesity has been shown to increase cancer explosively, we found that carbohydrate diet reduced tumor growth by one-fifth compared to high-fat diet in a mouse cancer model. This new finding suggests that blocking fat burning may have clinical benefit in cancer treatment.
While the Warburg effect, which is the basis of cancer metabolism, is limited to anabolic metabolism, this study is different from existing theories by discovering that the catabolic metabolism of cancer absolutely depends only on fatty acids.
Dr. Kim Su-yeol (Chief Researcher, Department of Cancer Molecular Biology) who led the study said, “The results of this study, which proved that cancer cell metabolism is a different mechanism from normal cells, suggest that blocking fat burning has a clinical advantage in cancer treatment. It will serve as a basis for breaking through the limitations of
He added, “We hope that the results of this research will contribute to the development of new anticancer drugs and treatments that regulate fat metabolism.”
Meanwhile, the research team is preparing a clinical trial for an anticancer strategy that inhibits fatty acid oxidation in pancreatic cancer. In addition, he will be invited as an oral presenter to the Keystone Symposia to be held in the United States on September 5 and will disclose the results of this research and clinical research plans.