In the past 15 years the field of cancer metabolism has burst providing vast
quantities of information regarding the metabolic adaptations found in cancer
cells and offering promising hints for the development of therapies that target
metabolic features of cancer cells.
By making use of the powerful combination of metabolomics and 13C-labelled
metabolite tracing we have contributed to the field by identifying a
mitochondrial enzymatic cascade crucial for oncogene-induced senescence (OIS),
which is a tumour suppressive mechanism important in melanoma, linking in this
way OIS to the regulation of metabolism.
Furthermore, we have identified the dependency on glutamine metabolism as an
important adaptation occurring concomitantly with the acquisition of resistance
to vemurafenib (BRAF inhibitor) in melanoma, which opens the possibility to
combine therapies targeting glutamine metabolism with BRAF inhibitors, in order
to overcome or avoid the onset of resistance in melanoma.
Using the same strategy we have discovered an important mechanism of interregulation
between glycolysis and amino acid metabolism, identifying the
glucose-derived amino acid serine as an activator of the main isoform of
pyruvate kinase present in cancer cells, PKM2. In addition, we provide new
insights into the mechanism of allosteric regulation of this complex protein and a
better understanding of the way it regulates central carbon metabolism.
In summary, our results open new possibilities for the development of cancer
therapies that manipulate metabolic adaptations found in cancer cells in order
to kill them specifically or halt their growth
