Stem cells are defined as cells able to both extensively self-renew and differentiate into progenitors. Research data show that more resistant stem cells than common cancer cells exist in cancer patients.To identify unrecognized differences between cancer stem cells and cancer cells might be able to develope effective classification,diagnose and treat ment for cancer.

Stem Cells,Cancer and Cancer Stem Cells

Tumors reprogram pathways of nutrient acquisition and metabolism to meet the bioenergetic, biosynthetic, and redox demands of malignant cells. These reprogrammed activities are now recognized as hallmarks of cancer, and recent work has uncovered remarkable flexibility in the specific pathways activated by tumor cells to support these key functions. In this perspective, we provide a conceptual framework to understand how and why metabolic reprogramming occurs in tumor cells, and the mechanisms linking altered metabolism to tumorigenesis and metastasis. Understanding these concepts will progressively support the development of new strategies to treat human cancer.

Fundamentals of cancer metabolism

The fat body plays major roles in the life of insects. It is a dynamic tissue involved in multiple metabolic functions. One of these functions is to store and release energy in response to the energy demands of the insect. Insects store energy reserves in the form of glycogen and triglycerides in the adipocytes, the main fat body cell. Insect adipocytes can store a great amount of lipid reserves as cytoplasmic lipid droplets. Lipid metabolism is essential for growth and reproduction and provides energy needed during extended nonfeeding periods. This review focuses on energy storage and release and summarizes current understanding of the mechanisms underlying these processes in insects.

Insect Fat Body: Energy, Metabolism, and Regulation

Simple and complex carbohydrates (glycans) have long been known to play major metabolic, structural and physical roles in biological systems. Targeted microbial binding to host glycans has also been studied for decades. But such biological roles can only explain some of the remarkable complexity and organismal diversity of glycans in nature. Reviewing the subject about two decades ago, one could find very few clear-cut instances of glycan-recognition-specific biological roles of glycans that were of intrinsic value to the organism expressing them. In striking contrast there is now a profusion of examples, such that this updated review cannot be comprehensive. Instead, a historical overview is presented, broad principles outlined and a few examples cited, representing diverse types of roles, mediated by various glycan classes, in different evolutionary lineages. What remains unchanged is the fact that while all theories regarding biological roles of glycans are supported by compelling evidence, exceptions to each can be found. In retrospect, this is not surprising. Complex and diverse glycans appear to be ubiquitous to all cells in nature, and essential to all life forms. Thus, >3 billion years of evolution consistently generated organisms that use these molecules for many key biological roles, even while sometimes coopting them for minor functions. In this respect, glycans are no different from other major macromolecular building blocks of life (nucleic acids, proteins and lipids), simply more rapidly evolving and complex. It is time for the diverse functional roles of glycans to be fully incorporated into the mainstream of biological sciences.

/pdf/biological-roles-of-glycans-zowb8sw07y.pdf

Biological Roles of Glycans

Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) was initially described as a key enzyme involved in glycogen metabolism, but is now known to regulate a diverse array of cell functions. The study of the substrate specificity and regulation of GSK3 activity has been important in the quest for therapeutic intervention.

The renaissance of GSK3.

It was in 1909 that Young, in the laboratory of Harden, isolated from fermenting yeast the fructose bisphosphate (the Harden and Young ester) that was later identified by Levene & Raymond (1928) as fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. Some 71 years elapsed until a second fructose bisphosphate was isolated from living cells and identified as fructose 2,6bisphosphate (Van Schaftingen et al., 1980c). In contrast with its elder brother, Fru-2,6-P2 is not an intermediary metabolite of glycolysis, but its most potent regulator. In the present review, we will summarize the work that led to its discovery and we will try to delineate its potential role in the control of metabolism in various organisms.

/pdf/fructose-2-6-bisphosphate-2-years-after-its-discovery-12bwfad1ea.pdf

Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate 2 Years After its Discovery

Carbohydrate-deficient glycoprotein syndrome type 1 (CDG1 or Jaeken syndrome) is the prototype of a class of genetic multisystem disorders characterized by defective glycosylation of glycoconjugates(1-4). It is mostly a severe disorder which presents neonatally. There is a severe encephalopathy with axial hypotonia, abnormal eye movements and pronounced psychomotor retardation, as well as a peripheral neuropathy, cerebellar hypoplasia and retinitis pigmentosa. The patients show a peculiar distribution of subcutaneous fat, nipple retraction and hypogonadism. There is a 20% lethality in the first years of life due to severe infections, liver insufficiency or cardiomyopathy(2,3,5). CDG1 shows an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance and has been mapped to chromosome 16p(6,7). Most patients show a deficiency of phosphomannomutase (PMM)(8), an enzyme necessary for the synthesis of GDP-mannose. We have cloned the PMM1 gene, which is on chromosome 22q13 (ref, 9), We now report the identification of a second human PMM gene, PMM2, which is located on 16p13 and which encodes a protein with 66% identity to PMM1. We found eleven different missense mutations in PMM2 in 16 CDG1 patients from different geographical origins and with a documented phosphomannomutase deficiency. Our results give conclusive support to the biochemical finding that the phosphomannomutase deficiency is the basis for CDG1.

Mutations in PMM2, a phosphomannomutase gene on chromosome 16p13, in carbohydrate-deficient glycoprotein type I syndrome (Jaeken syndrome)

The low-molecular-weight stimulator of phosphofructokinase [Van Schaftingen, Hue & Hers (1980) Biochem. J. 192, 887-895] has been purified from rat liver. It was completely destroyed upon incubation with 0.01 M-HCl for 10 min at 20 degrees C and fructose 6-phosphate and a reducing power equivalent in amount to the acid-labile organic phosphate were formed. It was therefore tentatively identified as fructose 2,6-bisphosphate.

/pdf/fructose-2-6-bisphosphate-the-probably-structure-of-the-41ieanbo4v.pdf

Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, the probably structure of the glucose- and glucagon-sensitive stimulator of phosphofructokinase.

Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, a known powerful stimulator of phosphofructokinase [Van Schaftingen, E., Hue, L. & Hers, H.-G. (1980) Biochem. J. 192, 897-901] was found to inhibit, at micromolar concentrations, liver and muscle fructose-1,6-biphosphate (D-fructose-1,6-bisphosphate 1-phosphohydrolase, EC 3.1.3.11). The main characteristics of this inhibition are that (i) it is much stronger at low than at high substrate concentrations, (ii) it changes the substrate saturation curve from almost hyperbolic to sigmoidal, and (iii) it is synergistic with the inhibition by AMP. This inhibition may play an important role in the stimulation of gluconeogenesis by glucagon, because this hormone is known to decrease the concentration of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate in the liver [Van Schaftingen, E., Hue, L. & Hers, H.-G. (1980) Biochem. J. 192, 887-895].

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/78/5/2861.full.pdf

Inhibition of fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase by fructose 2,6-biphosphate

Glucokinase is one of the four hexokinases present in mammalian tissues. It is expressed in two cell types that have to respond to changes in the blood glucose concentration, the liver parenchymal cell and the beta-cells of pancreatic islets. The former are responsible for the metabolism and storage of an important part of the ingested glucose, whereas the latter secrete insulin in response to an increase in the blood glucose level. One major characteristic of glucokinase is that it has a relatively low affinity for glucose and displays positive cooperativity for this substrate, despite the fact that it is a monomeric enzyme. Furthermore, unlike other hexokinases, it is not inhibited by micromolar (physiological) concentrations of glucose 6-phosphate but by a regulatory protein that transduces the effect of fructose 6-phosphate and of fructose 1-phosphate. The purpose of this review is to describe these aspects of the regulation of glucokinase.

https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1096/fasebj.8.6.8168691

E Van Schaftingen

Papers

Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate 2 Years After its Discovery

Mutations in PMM2, a phosphomannomutase gene on chromosome 16p13, in carbohydrate-deficient glycoprotein type I syndrome (Jaeken syndrome)

Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, the probably structure of the glucose- and glucagon-sensitive stimulator of phosphofructokinase.

Inhibition of fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase by fructose 2,6-biphosphate

Short-term control of glucokinase activity: role of a regulatory protein.