Mitochondria in cancer

Abstract

The rediscovery and reinterpretation of the Warburg effect in the year 2000 occulted for almost a decade the key functions exerted by mitochondria in cancer cells. Until recent times, the scientific community indeed focused on constitutive glycolysis as a hallmark of cancer cells, which it is not, largely ignoring the contribution of mitochondria to the malignancy of oxidative and glycolytic cancer cells, being Warburgian or merely adapted to hypoxia. In this review, we highlight that mitochondria are not only powerhouses in some cancer cells, but also dynamic regulators of life, death, proliferation, motion and stemness in other types of cancer cells. Similar to the cells that host them, mitochondria are capable to adapt to tumoral conditions, and probably to evolve to 'oncogenic mitochondria' capable of transferring malignant capacities to recipient cells. In the wider quest of metabolic modulators of cancer, treatments have already been identified targeting mitochondria in cancer cells, but the field is still in infancy.

Induction of Redox-Mediated Cell Death in ER-Positive and ER-Negative Breast Cancer Cells by a Copper(II)-Phenolate Complex: An In Vitro and In Silico Study

“…Copper complexes, which are highly oxidized, have been reported to induce DNA strand breaks and base damage in various cancer cells [ 37 , 45 , 51 , 64 , 70 ]. The results of the comet assay in this study indicate DNA damage, thus supporting the inference arrived at from morphological analyses, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and alteration of intracellular ROS levels, and a majority of affected cells succumbed to death by apoptosis [ 73 ].…”

Recent Advances in Histopathological and Molecular Diagnosis in Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma: Challenges for Predicting Metastasis in Individual Patients

“…These altered genes subsequently promote anaerobic metabolism by tumor cells, shifting ATP resources from the TCA cycle into the system of metabolic glycolysis (62)(63)(64). These alterations in intracellular metabolism eventually result in degradation of chromatin remodeling, reactive oxygen species production, and DNA methylation (62)(63)(64)(65)(66). These intracellular changes also enable tumor cells to efficiently synthesize ATP, although the amounts of ATP synthesized from glycolysis per reaction does not reach…”

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