Journal
CANCERS
Volume 11, Issue 11, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/cancers11111628
Keywords
brain tumor; metabolism; glutamine; glutamate; redox homeostasis; imaging; therapy
Categories
Funding
- NIH/NINDS [R01NS110572]
- Chad Tough Alex Lemonade Stand Foundation
- Storm The Heavens Foundation
- Sidney Kimmel Foundation
- Doris Duke Foundation
- Sontag Foundation
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Altered metabolism is a hallmark of cancer cells. Tumor cells rewire their metabolism to support their uncontrolled proliferation by taking up nutrients from the microenvironment. The amino acid glutamine is a key nutrient that fuels biosynthetic processes including ATP generation, redox homeostasis, nucleotide, protein, and lipid synthesis. Glutamine as a precursor for the neurotransmitter glutamate, and plays a critical role in the normal functioning of the brain. Brain tumors that grow in this glutamine/glutamate rich microenvironment can make synaptic connections with glutamatergic neurons and reprogram glutamine metabolism to enable their growth. In this review, we examine the functions of glutamate/glutamine in the brain and how brain tumor cells reprogram glutamine metabolism. Altered glutamine metabolism can be leveraged to develop non-invasive imaging strategies and we review these imaging modalities. Finally, we examine if targeting glutamine metabolism could serve as a therapeutic strategy in brain tumors.
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