Metabolic Reprogramming in Breast Cancer

Metabolic reprogramming is an emerging hallmark of breast cancer. A common characteristic of tumor cells is the ability to obtain nutrients from a nutrient-deprived environment and to use them to sustain cancer progression, within crucial metabolic pathways including altered metabolism of glucose, lipids, and amino acids. Also, altered metabolism has been recognized as one of the major mechanisms of resistance to therapies. Important advances have been made to elucidate key mechanisms of metabolic reprogramming which will make possible new strategies for overcoming breast cancer. However, for metabolic therapy to be effective there is a need to clearly understand the metabolic underpinnings of the different subtypes of breast cancer as well as the role the standard-of-care therapies play in targeting the metabolic phenotype.

The Research topic aims to explore: i) the major molecular features of breast cancer related to metabolic reprogramming; ii) the potential metabolic targets and corresponding agents for breast cancer treatment; iii) the major metabolically adapted pathways in breast cancer; iv) the potential therapeutic targets to guide breast cancer metabolic therapy; v) the metabolic interaction between cancer cells and the microenvironment in breast cancer and how metabolic adaptation influences breast cancer progression and resistance to therapies.

Potential themes of interest for this Research Topic would be:

1. Metabolic differences between different subtypes of breast cancer.
2. Metabolic pathway preferences of breast cancer cells based on the site and stage of metastasis.
3. The relationship between the standard-of-care therapies and metabolic reprogramming in breast cancer.
4. Novel targets for metabolic therapy in breast cancer.
5. The impact of the metabolic reprogramming and resistance to therapies in breast cancer.
6. The role of the microenvironment in the metabolic reprogramming in breast cancer.

Authors are welcome to submit original research articles, short communications of preliminary, but significant, experimental results and review articles (either systematic or discursive).

Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in Frontiers in Oncology.