Unlike normal cells, cancer cells have the unique ability to adapt to extreme microenvironment conditions such as hypoxia, nutrient scarcity, acidic pH, and inflammation. Cancer cells not only cope with this stressful microenvironment but also use it for tumor-associated processes such as metastasis, immune evasion, angiogenesis, chemoresistance, etc. Cancer cells can adjust their metabolism according to their microenvironment, which gives them the selective advantage to evade the immune response, survive, proliferate, and metastasize. Cancer cells, as compared to normal cells, divert a much higher amount of carbon flux to glycolysis, even in the presence of oxygen, a phenomenon known as the Warburg effect. The altered metabolism of cancer cells is considered one of the hallmarks of cancer. Altered cancer cell metabolism is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, which involves increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and altered redox homeostasis leads to uncontrolled growth and proliferation. Moreover, high lactate secretion in the tumor microenvironment has been shown to modulate the tumor immune response.
The metabolic phenotype of each cancer type may vary depending upon the tissue of origin, local environment, and genetic factors. A central unanswered question is how these factors influence the metabolic alteration in specific cancers, which selectively provide them with an advantage to survive, proliferate, and metastasize. Furthermore, how does it contribute to an altered immune response against cancer cells? In recent years, altered tumor metabolism has emerged as one of the most promising aspects of cancer therapy, which offers selective targeting of cancer cells and activates tumor immune response. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the molecular and biochemical mechanism of how cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to overcomplete infiltered immune cells and other surrounding normal cells to gain survival, proliferation, immune evasion, and metastatic advantages selectively. Understanding these processes could create new therapeutic targets to control tumorigenesis.
In this special issue, we are looking for articles focused on any aspects of cancer metabolism or immune metabolism associated with the tumor microenvironment. We invite any forms of manuscripts such as short articles, complete articles, commentary, or reviews highlighting the new advances in the area of cellular bioenergetics (glucose, fatty acid, and amino acid metabolism) or systemic cancer metabolisms (obesity and cancer); other related areas such as mitochondrial metabolism and dysfunction, ROS signaling and redox homeostasis, signaling pathways involved in regulating cancer metabolism, inflammation, and cancer metabolism, and immune metabolism in the tumor microenvironment. Moreover, we prefer method articles or new protocols in studying metabolisms or any new and advanced method to study metabolism in cancer cells and immune cells for submission to this Special Issue.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (clinical cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Unlike normal cells, cancer cells have the unique ability to adapt to extreme microenvironment conditions such as hypoxia, nutrient scarcity, acidic pH, and inflammation. Cancer cells not only cope with this stressful microenvironment but also use it for tumor-associated processes such as metastasis, immune evasion, angiogenesis, chemoresistance, etc. Cancer cells can adjust their metabolism according to their microenvironment, which gives them the selective advantage to evade the immune response, survive, proliferate, and metastasize. Cancer cells, as compared to normal cells, divert a much higher amount of carbon flux to glycolysis, even in the presence of oxygen, a phenomenon known as the Warburg effect. The altered metabolism of cancer cells is considered one of the hallmarks of cancer. Altered cancer cell metabolism is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, which involves increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and altered redox homeostasis leads to uncontrolled growth and proliferation. Moreover, high lactate secretion in the tumor microenvironment has been shown to modulate the tumor immune response.
The metabolic phenotype of each cancer type may vary depending upon the tissue of origin, local environment, and genetic factors. A central unanswered question is how these factors influence the metabolic alteration in specific cancers, which selectively provide them with an advantage to survive, proliferate, and metastasize. Furthermore, how does it contribute to an altered immune response against cancer cells? In recent years, altered tumor metabolism has emerged as one of the most promising aspects of cancer therapy, which offers selective targeting of cancer cells and activates tumor immune response. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the molecular and biochemical mechanism of how cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to overcomplete infiltered immune cells and other surrounding normal cells to gain survival, proliferation, immune evasion, and metastatic advantages selectively. Understanding these processes could create new therapeutic targets to control tumorigenesis.
In this special issue, we are looking for articles focused on any aspects of cancer metabolism or immune metabolism associated with the tumor microenvironment. We invite any forms of manuscripts such as short articles, complete articles, commentary, or reviews highlighting the new advances in the area of cellular bioenergetics (glucose, fatty acid, and amino acid metabolism) or systemic cancer metabolisms (obesity and cancer); other related areas such as mitochondrial metabolism and dysfunction, ROS signaling and redox homeostasis, signaling pathways involved in regulating cancer metabolism, inflammation, and cancer metabolism, and immune metabolism in the tumor microenvironment. Moreover, we prefer method articles or new protocols in studying metabolisms or any new and advanced method to study metabolism in cancer cells and immune cells for submission to this Special Issue.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (clinical cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
