In oncology, the Warburg effect (/ˈvɑːrbʊərɡ/) is the observation that most cancer use aerobic glycolysis for energy generation rather than the mechanisms used by non-cancerous cells.[1] This observation was first published by Otto Heinrich Warburg,[2] who was awarded the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology for his "discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme".[3] The existence of the Warburg effect has fuelled popular misconceptions that cancer can be treated by dietary reductions in sugar and carbohydrate.[1]
In fermentation, the last product of glycolysis, pyruvate, is converted into lactate (lactic acid fermentation) or ethanol (alcoholic fermentation). While fermentation produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP) only in low yield compared to the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation of aerobic respiration, it allows proliferating cells to convert nutrients such as glucose and glutamine more efficiently into biomass by avoiding unnecessary catabolic oxidation of such nutrients into carbon dioxide, preserving carbon-carbon bonds and promoting anabolism.[4][failed verification]
Diagnostically the increased glucose consumption by cancer cells resulting from the Warburg effect is the basis for tumor detection in a PET scan, in which an injected radioactive glucose analog is detected at higher concentrations in malignant cancers than in other tissues.[5]
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