Altered metabolic regulation has long been observed in human cancer and broadly used in the clinic for tumor detection. Two recent findings—the direct regulation of metabolic enzymes by frequently mutated cancer genes and frequent mutations of several metabolic enzymes themselves in cancer—have renewed interest in cancer metabolism. Supporting a causative role of altered metabolic enzymes in tumorigenesis, abnormal levels of several metabolites have been found to play a direct role in cancer development. The alteration of metabolic genes and metabolites offer not only new biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis, but also potential new targets for cancer therapy
