oa Editorial [Hot Topic: Anti-Lipogenesis as a Novel Strategy for Cancer Therapy (Guest Editor: Jianghua Liu and Deliang Cao)]

“Biochemistry textbooks present glycolysis and fat synthesis as history, with all of facts known” [1]. However, a new challenge emerges with better understanding of cancer cell metabolism-aerobic glycolysis is approximately 200 times higher in a cancer cell than in the normal cell of origin, even though oxygen is available [2]. Glucose is a universal fuel and building material in organisms due to its low non-specific glycation, a process that often leads to protein damage and dysfunction [3]. Glucose is used for energy (adenosine 5'-triphosphate, ATP) production in cells by aerobic or anaerobic respiration. Through the glycolytic pathway, glucose is also diverted to de novo lipid synthesis (lipogenesis) and other biosynthetic pathways (Fig. (1)). Lipogenesis consists of two processes: long chain fatty acid synthesis and triglyceride synthesis (esterification of fatty acids with glycerol). In cytosol, glucose is glycolyzed into pyruvate that is then converted to citrate in mitochondria. Citrate is transported into the cytosol and cleaved into acetyl-CoA and oxaloacetate by ATP citrate lyase. Cytosolic acetyl-CoA is used for malonyl-CoA formation by acetyl-CoA carboxylases. Fatty acid synthase condensates malonyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA into a long chain fatty acid, saturated palmitate (C16:0) [4, 5]. This de novo fatty acid synthesis from glucose is called a glycolysis-citrate-lipogenesis pathway.....