title: Cancer cell metabolism and developmental homeodomain/POU domain transcription factors: a connecting link.
abstract: The human race is afflicted with more than 100 types of cancer with diversified underlying genetic events. Still, altered metabolism (known as 'Warburg effect') and unrestrained cellular proliferation are precise traits of all cancers, being governed by the expression of genes. The obligatory energy for the proliferating neoplastic cells is endowed through the glycolytic pathway, albeit, lesser ATP is generated in this metabolic process. So, some perceptible cancer cell specific signalling is at the base of the transformed metabolism. Concurrently, the regulators of gene expression, transcription factors, have been observed to be one of the driving forces for tumourigenesis through transcriptional activation of genes involved not only in proliferation, growth and survival signalling, but also in glycolysis. This may be exemplified by the extensively studied metabolic functions of the transcriptional regulator, hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF1), which transactivates genes of the major enzymes of glycolysis. Preliminary investigation of a vital group of transcription factors, homeodomain transcription factors, revealed association with the process of development of an organism. The homeodomain transcription factors are, however, also found to be involved in the tumourigenesis process, with little or no information on their involvement in cancer cell metabolism. So, this is a review of the existing knowledge on homeodomain transcription factor/s for deciphering their involvement in neoplastic metabolism and it emerges that homeodomain transcription factors influence the transformed metabolic pathway in a circuitous manner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Assam University, Assam 788011, India.
authors.forename: Biswa Pratim Das
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Purkayastha
authors.affiliation: Cytogenetics Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India. Electronic address: jkroy@bhu.ac.in.
authors.forename: Jagat Kumar
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Roy
mesh_terms: D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D006019:Glycolysis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D051793:Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1 / Q000235:genetics; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3 / Q000235:genetics*; D015533:Transcriptional Activation
chemical_list: D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D051793:Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3; C494173:POU5F1 protein, human; D005947:Glucose
keywords: Apoptosis; Homeodomain; Metabolism; POU; Survival; Transcription factor