Warburg Effect

Synonyms

Aerobic glycolysis; Tumor glucose metabolism

Definition

Warburg Effect describes the propensity for cancer cells to convert glucose to lactate even when oxygen is ample. This effect, also known as aerobic glycolysis, contrasts with the anaerobic glycolysis that occurs as an adaptive response to low oxygen tension or hypoxia. Adaptive responses through the induction of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) and cell autonomous changes that activate AKT, HIF-1, MYC or RAS oncogenes or inactivate the tumor suppressor P53 or VHL could all contribute to the Warburg effect.

Characteristics

In reports of pioneering studies, which were translated from German by Frank Dickens in 1930 and made accessible to English readers as a monograph entitled “The Metabolism of Tumors,” Otto Warburg described the propensity for cancer cells to convert glucose to lactate even in the presence of oxygen. The experiments described by Warburg were prescient in determining the maximum allowable thickness...