Metabolism: Cancer Cells vs. Healthy Cells (Post #18)

Welcome back to the Spiramen Founder's Blog! It's been a while, so let's jump right in! This week, we will be discussing how cancer's metabolism varies from normal cell metabolism, and then look at it from a treatment angle.

First, let's start off by understanding the metabolism of a normal human cell. A cell's metabolism refers to all the chemical reactions that keep it alive. One of these chemical reaction pathways is a process called "cell respiration". The end goal of the cell respiration process is to create energy (ATP) for cells. This energy allows cells to perform basic functions like exchanging molecules and muscle contraction.

Different organisms use different pathways to create ATP, or energy. Human cells use "aerobic cell respiration", meaning that oxygen is required for these cells to produce ATP.

Let's take a quick look at how this aerobic cell respiration works:

• glucose is broken down through a process called glycolysis

  • occurs in the cell cytoplasm

• the glycolysis process forms a 'pyruvate' molecule

• this 'pyruvate' enters the mitochondria when oxygen is available

• the mitochondria performs a process called "oxidative phosphorylation" to produce ATP

Cancer cells, though they are human cells, produce energy a little differently. Their process of ATP production is called the "Warburg Effect".

Cancer cells use up A LOT of glucose. Instead of sending the pyruvate formed during glycolysis into the mitochondria, they convert it into lactate. This is usually only necessary when oxygen is scarce, but cancer cells do it even when there is a lot of oxygen available. This process is not only inefficient and produces less ATP, but also unnecessary. So why do they do it?

Since cancer cells multiple rapidly, they require more lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, etc. These are all molecules that are essential to producing new cells. When cancer cells undertake the Warburg Effect, they are able to produce a lot of intermediate chemicals which lead to the production of extra lipids, amino acids, etc. Essentially, cancer cells sacrifice efficiency, but are in turn able to produce new cells more rapidly. The Warburg Effect is part of why cancer tumors (collection of cells) are able to grow and spread so quickly.

The Warburg Effect also leads to the "tumor microenvironment" we've discussed in previous posts. We saw how cancer cells turn pyruvate molecules into lactate instead of sending them to the mitochondria, but what happens to the lactate formed? This lactate accumulates around cancer cells, causing tissue acifidication. This just means that the area around the tumor has a low pH and becomes acidic.

As a result of tissue acidification, antitumor immune cells like T-Cells and Natural Killer (NK) are suppressed, and immunotherapy becomes less effective.

So, we learned about how cancer cells' metabolism is different from normal body cells' metabolism. How can we use this in treatment?

Well, researchers have been looking into whether therapies could target metabolic pathways instead of the cancer cells themselves. This way, the cells won't get the energy they need to multiply in the first place. Some examples of these pathway molecules that can be targeted are LDHA, GLUT proteins, and G6PD. However, one difficulty with this treatment is that it could harm healthy cells alongside cancer ones. This is because cancer cells and healthy cells share many metabolic pathways.

As of now, due to the risk to healthy cells, researchers are focusing on blocking only one pathway. This way, cancer cells will get damaged, but the treatment won't be aggressive enough to heavily damage healthy cells. Since this treatment method is not be as aggressive, it needs to be combined with other therapies like chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

Thanks for reading today's post! I hope you learned something new! See you tomorrow for the next one.

Information Citations:

Liberti, Maria V., and Jason W. Locasale. “The Warburg Effect: How Does It Benefit Cancer Cells?” Trends in Biochemical Sciences, vol. 41, no. 3, Jan. 2016, pp. 211–18, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibs.2015.12.001.

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Image Citations:

Center for Cancer Research. A Three-Dimensional Illustration of a Cancer Cell in the Process of Mitosis.https://ccr.cancer.gov/news/horizons/article/cell-metabolism-and-cancer. Accessed 21 July 2026.