Glycolytic enzyme inhibitors in cancer treatment

BACKGROUND: The radio- and chemotherapeutics currently used for the treatment of cancer are widely known to be characterized by a low therapeutic index. An interesting approach to overcoming some of the limits of these techniques is the exploitation of the so-called Warburg effect, which typically characterizes neoplastic cells. Interestingly, this feature has already been utilized with good results, but only for diagnostic purposes (PET and SPECT). From a pharmacological point of view, drugs able to perturb cancer cell metabolism, specifically at the level of glycolysis, may display interesting therapeutic activities in cancer. OBJECTIVE: The pharmacological actions of these glycolytic enzyme inhibitors, based primarily on ATP depletion, could include: i) amelioration of drug selectivity by exploiting the particular glycolysis addiction of cancer cell; ii) inhibition of energetic and anabolic processes; iii) reduction of hypoxia-linked cancer-cell resistance; iv) reduction of ATP-dependent multi-drug resistance; and v) cytotoxic synergism with conventional cancer treatments. CONCLUSION: Several glycolytic inhibitors are currently in preclinical and clinical development. Their clinical value as anticancer agents, above all in terms of therapeutic index, strictly depends on a careful reevaluation of the pathophyiological role of the unique metabolism of cancer cells in general and of Warburg effect in particular.