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Glutamine in Clinical Nutrition pp 99–111Cite as

Glutamine Addiction of Cancer Cells

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Part of the book series: Nutrition and Health ((NH))

Abstract

Cancer cells show an altered metabolism to fulfill their energy requirements. Along with the higher aerobic glycolytic flux, some tumors show a higher demand of glutamine with respect to normal cells. Indeed, glutamine sustains tumor proliferation rate being both a carbon and nitrogen donor for biosynthetic pathways. Glutamine also play other essential roles: mediates the uptake of non-essential aminoacids, preserves mitochondrial homeostasis and it is required for cell cycle progression. This glutamine addiction of cancer cells can be exploited to develop new anticancer therapies that target different steps of glutamine metabolism (e.g. uptake, catabolism). Many lines of evidence demonstrated that many cancer cell lines are sensitive to glutamine deprivation. In particular, glutamine deprivation has been observed to induce myc-dependent apoptosis in cell overexpressing the oncogene myc. Moreover, it has been recently demonstrated by our group that glutamine deprivation led to the upregulation of the monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1), which is the main responsible for the uptake of 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA), an anti tumor agent under clinical development. MCT1 upregulation results in a higher sensitivity of cancer cells to 3-BrPA both in vivo and in vitro, providing a promising strategy for the treatment of glycolytic tumours.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by grants from AIRC (# IG 10636) and from Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy

    Enrico Desideri Ph.D. & Maria Rosa Ciriolo Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Enrico Desideri Ph.D.
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  2. Maria Rosa Ciriolo Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maria Rosa Ciriolo Ph.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Intensive Care, Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals, London, United Kingdom

    Rajkumar Rajendram

  2. Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences, School of Medicine, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Victor R. Preedy

  3. Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom

    Vinood B. Patel

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Desideri, E., Ciriolo, M.R. (2015). Glutamine Addiction of Cancer Cells. In: Rajendram, R., Preedy, V., Patel, V. (eds) Glutamine in Clinical Nutrition. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1932-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1932-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-1931-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1932-1

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