Kwon Hyuknam, Oh Sehyun, Jin Xing, An Yong Jin, Park Sunghyouk
College of Pharmacy, Natural Product Research Institute, Seoul National University, Sillim-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-742, Korea.
Arch Pharm Res. 2015 Mar;38(3):372-80. doi: 10.1007/s12272-015-0552-4. Epub 2015 Jan 30.
As metabolomics investigates metabolic pathways with the focus on metabolites, it is a suitable approach to address the complex metabolic alteration in cancer. In addition, metabolic profiles are affected by environmental and post-natal changes, and therefore, directly measuring many metabolites may provide epigenetically relevant information in cancer. Despite much development in our understanding of cancer metabolism, focus is often directed to signaling or metabolic proteins that modulate the metabolite levels. In this review, we discuss the "metabolite-oriented view" on cancer metabolism. We cover how metabolomics research contributed to our current insights into the basic mechanism of metabolic alterations leading to cancer. Then, we discuss specific metabolites and related enzymatic pathways directly related with tumorigenesis. We particularly pay attention to how metabolites regulate signaling proteins and metabolic enzymes ultimately leading to cancer phenotypes. Finally, we address future prospects and challenges of metabolomics in cancer research.
由于代谢组学以代谢物为重点研究代谢途径，因此它是解决癌症中复杂代谢改变的合适方法。此外，代谢谱受环境和出生后变化的影响，因此，直接测量多种代谢物可能会在癌症中提供表观遗传相关信息。尽管我们对癌症代谢的理解有了很大进展，但研究重点往往指向调节代谢物水平的信号蛋白或代谢蛋白。在本综述中，我们讨论了关于癌症代谢的“以代谢物为导向的观点”。我们阐述了代谢组学研究如何为我们目前对导致癌症的代谢改变基本机制的认识做出贡献。然后，我们讨论与肿瘤发生直接相关的特定代谢物和相关酶促途径。我们特别关注代谢物如何调节信号蛋白和代谢酶最终导致癌症表型。最后，我们探讨了代谢组学在癌症研究中的未来前景和挑战。
