[Origination and importance of glycolysis for malignomas and utilization of this property in the chemotherapy of cancer (author's transl)]

Abstract

Glycolysis is not of importance for the process of carcinogenesis. It is very likely, however, that certain molecular-biological and genetic changes are produced which enable the malignant cell to develop an intensive glycolysis, for instance, to form specialized glycolytic isoenzymes already during oncogenesis, and may possible become effective in the primary tumour. As soon as the capacity of the cancer cell to intensive aerobic and anaerobic glycolysis has become manifest, this process is an irreversible one. The extent of glycolysis of a malignoma is greatly dependent on the degree of its dedifferentiation and vascularization (glucose supply), although a direct correlation between growth and the amount of lactic acid formed does not seem to exist. However, a certain utilization of glucose is essential for cell proliferation (supply of basic substances). In many cases there is a correlation between the extent of glycolysis measurable under optimal conditions in vitro (glycolytic power) in a malignant tumour and its growth rate recognizable in vivo. The formation of a strong capacity for glucose degradation via the Embden-Meyerhof pathway that cannot be fully utilized by the whole tumour in vivo is first of all designed to ensure survival and proliferation of cells even at extremely low levels of glucose supply. This process can be regarded as an adaptation of cancer cells to a situation of unsufficient supply. This circumstance endows the cancer cell with an essential advantage over the normal cell which enables or even promotes its invasive and destructive growth and metastatic dissemination. In this respect they differ, for instance, from benignant neoplasms. The possibility is discussed to control neoplastic growth by adjusting an optimal pH difference between normal and tumour tissue by combined administration of detoxicated drugs which are converted to their toxic forms only in the tumour by means of strongly pH-dependent exogenous enzymes.