Understanding the Warburg Effect: The Metabolic Requirements of Cell Proliferation

Fuel Economy for Growing Cells

Sophisticated 21st-century analyses of the signaling pathways that control cell growth have led researchers back to the seminal work of Otto Warburg, who discovered in the 1920s that tumor cells generate their energy in an unusual way—by switching from mitochondrial respiration to glycolysis. The advantage conferred by this metabolic switch is puzzling because mitochondrial respiration is a more efficient way to produce ATP. Vander Heiden et al. (p. 1029 ) review arguments that rapidly growing cells have critical metabolic requirements that extend beyond ATP and that a better understanding of these requirements may shed new light on the “Warburg effect” and ultimately lead to new therapies for cancer.