Metabolic pathways promoting cancer cell survival and growth

Burroughs and DeBerardinis discuss the metabolic pathways that tumour cells employ to promote their survival and proliferation, and present the current approaches to study cancer metabolism in an in vivo setting. Activation of oncogenes and loss of tumour suppressors promote metabolic reprogramming in cancer, resulting in enhanced nutrient uptake to supply energetic and biosynthetic pathways. However, nutrient limitations within solid tumours may require that malignant cells exhibit metabolic flexibility to sustain growth and survival. Here, we highlight these adaptive mechanisms and also discuss emerging approaches to probe tumour metabolism in vivo and their potential to expand the metabolic repertoire of malignant cells even further.