The Warburg effect and oncogenes

 

Our favorite troll in the Alkaline/Acid debate forum keeps denying the fact that most cancers are caused from viruses, and keeps implying that their false interpretation of what Warburg claimed proves viruses play no role in cancer formation. Here is a link regarding the role of oncogenes (genes that cause cancer). Keep in mind that it was reported in a science Journal about a decade ago that every oncogene ever identified was viral in origin, and that NO human oncogenes had ever been found. The claim of oncogene involvement is highlighted below, and I underlined a few other interesting statements.

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/49/14/3759.pdf

"OTTO WARBURG first discovered an inverse relationship in tumor

tissues between oxidative and glycolytic metabolism using an

apparatus (Warburg apparatus) he developed to measure the

rate at which slices of living tissue consume oxygen (42). He

found that, compared with their normal counterpart tissues,

murine tumors showed attenuated mitochondrial respiration

accompanied by a high rate of glycolysis (42, 43). It is this

phenomenon that now constitutes the physiological basis for

[18F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDGPET)

that is used for cancer diagnosis and monitoring therapeutic

responses (13).

Normal cells convert glucose to pyruvate and then generate

ATP from pyruvate oxidation. Within the mitochondria, oxidative

phosphorylation (OXPHOS) utilizes electron flow from

a reduced substrate to molecular oxygen to synthesize ATP

from ADP and Pi. In normal cells, most of the intracellular

ATP is generated from OXPHOS (34). In the absence of

oxygen, pyruvate is converted to lactic acid in the cytoplasm,

thus completing the glycolysis cycle. Conversion of glucose

into lactic acid under normal oxygen tension, a distinct characteristic

of tumor cells, is also known as aerobic glycolysis

(14). Glucose utilization provides a constant energy supply, as

well as precursors for de novo macromolecular biosynthesis,

including DNA, RNA, fatty acids, and amino acids that are

essential for cell growth and proliferation.

Although the mechanism of the Warburg effect and its role

in malignant transformation remained elusive for many years,

there is now a rapidly growing body of molecular and biochemical

evidence indicating that oncogenes most likely underlie

the mechanism that drives the Warburg effect and

malignant transformation (3, 10, 11, 30). Multiple oncogenic

pathways including Ras, Src, and Myc have been shown to

promote malignant transformation and aerobic glycolysis

through stabilization of hypoxia-inducible factor 1
(HIF-1
)

(3, 10, 11). This apparent dependency of cancer cells on

glucose is being exploited for the development of anticancer

drugs (17, 21, 32). In fact, some anticancer drugs produce their

effects by forcing the reversal of these metabolic alterations (4,

15, 20)."

 

 

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