Estimation of energy pathway fluxes in cancer cells - Beyond the Warburg effect

Glycolytic and respiratory fluxes were analyzed in cancer and non-cancer cells. The steady-state fluxes in energy metabolism were used to estimate the contributions of aerobic glycolytic and oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos) pathways to the cellular ATP supply. The rate of lactate production - corrected for the fraction generated by glutaminolysis - is proposed as the appropriate way to estimate glycolytic flux. In general, the glycolytic rates estimated for cancer cells are higher than those found in non-cancer cells, as originally observed by Otto Warburg. The rate of basal or endogenous cellular O₂ consumption corrected for non-ATP synthesizing O₂ consumption, measured after inhibition by oligomycin (a specific, potent and permeable ATP synthase inhibitor), has been proposed as the appropriate way to estimate mitochondrial ATP synthesis-linked O₂ flux or net OxPhos flux in living cells. Detecting non-negligible oligomycin-sensitive O₂ consumption rates in cancer cells has revealed that the mitochondrial function is not impaired, as claimed by the Warburg effect. Furthermore, when calculating the relative contributions to cellular ATP supply, under a variety of environmental conditions and for different types of cancer cells, it was found that OxPhos pathway was the main ATP provider over glycolysis. Hence, OxPhos pathway targeting can be successfully used to block in cancer cells ATP-dependent processes such as migration. These observations may guide the re-design of novel targeted therapies.