The Evolving Landscape of Noncanonical Functions of Metabolic Enzymes in Cancer and Other Pathologies

Abstract

Key pathological, including oncogenic, signaling pathways regulate the canonical functions of metabolic enzymes that serve the cellular metabolic needs. Importantly, these signaling pathways also confer a large number of metabolic enzymes to have noncanonical or nonmetabolic functions that are referred to as "moonlighting" functions. In this review, we highlight how aberrantly regulated metabolic enzymes with such activities play critical roles in the governing of a wide spectrum of instrumental cellular activities, including gene expression, cell-cycle progression, DNA repair, cell proliferation, survival, apoptosis, and tumor microenvironment remodeling, thereby promoting the pathologic progression of disease, including cancer.

Keywords: DNA repair; apoptosis; cell proliferation; cell-cycle progression; gene expression; metabolic enzyme; noncanonical function; survival; tumor microenvironment.