Survival strategy of cancer cells
It has long been known that cancer cells use nutrients differently than normal cells. In recent years, the rapidly re-emerging field of cancer metabolism has shed new light on the ways that cancers use glucose to grow and thrive, demonstrating that manipulation of an enzyme called PKM2 is important to this metabolic process. Now a new study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) has uncovered another key mechanism that cancer cells use as part of their survival strategy — and once again it seems that they are using PKM2 to their advantage. Reported in the Nov. 3 express online edition of Science, the new findings show that by keeping PKM2 activity at lower-than-normal levels, cancer cells are able to withstand damage caused by oxidative stress and the generation of potentially toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS). Importantly, the study shows that small-molecule PKM2 activator...