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Journal ArticleDOI

Ceramide-orchestrated signalling in cancer cells

Samy A.F. Morad, +1 more
- 01 Jan 2013 - 
- Vol. 13, Iss: 1, pp 51-65
TLDR
This Review focuses on ceramide signalling and the targeting of specific metabolic junctures to amplify the tumour suppressive activities of ceramide.
Abstract
One crucial barrier to progress in the treatment of cancer has been the inability to control the balance between cell proliferation and apoptosis: enter ceramide. Discoveries over the past 15 years have elevated this sphingolipid to the lofty position of a regulator of cell fate. Ceramide, it turns out, is a powerful tumour suppressor, potentiating signalling events that drive apoptosis, autophagic responses and cell cycle arrest. However, defects in ceramide generation and metabolism in cancer cells contribute to tumour cell survival and resistance to chemotherapy. This Review focuses on ceramide signalling and the targeting of specific metabolic junctures to amplify the tumour suppressive activities of ceramide. The potential of ceramide-based therapeutics in the treatment of cancer is also discussed.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Circulating ceramides as biomarkers of cardiovascular disease: Evidence from phenotypic and genomic studies.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the importance of DNA variants in genes involved in ceramide biosynthesis as key influencers of heritable, circulating ceramide levels and discuss mechanistic insights deriving from recent genomic studies.
Journal ArticleDOI

Englerin A induces an acute inflammatory response and reveals lipid metabolism and ER stress as targetable vulnerabilities in renal cell carcinoma.

TL;DR: The findings suggest that cc-RCC is highly sensitive to disruptions in lipid metabolism and ER stress and that these vulnerabilities can be targeted for the treatment of cc- RCC and possibly other lipid storing cancers.
Journal ArticleDOI

Symbol addition by monkeys provides evidence for normalized quantity coding

TL;DR: Rhesus monkeys trained to associate 26 distinct symbols with 0–25 drops of reward found that they could combine symbolically represented magnitudes, and they transferred this ability to a novel symbol set, indicating that they were performing a calculation, not just memorizing the value of each combination.
Book ChapterDOI

Mechanism-based inhibitors of glycosidases: design and applications.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the various catalytic reaction mechanisms employed by inverting and retaining glycosidase targets to release a highly reactive species within the active site of the enzyme.
Journal ArticleDOI

Exosomal neutral sphingomyelinase 1 suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma via decreasing the ratio of sphingomyelin/ceramide.

TL;DR: It is reported that NSMase1, which converts sphingomyelin (SM) to ceramide, was significantly downregulated in HCC tissues and suppressed HCC cell growth and induced apoptosis via reduction of the SM/Cer ratio.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

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Journal ArticleDOI

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Journal ArticleDOI

FoxO3 controls autophagy in skeletal muscle in vivo.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Targeting mitochondria for cancer therapy

TL;DR: The mitochondrial metabolism of cancer cells is deregulated owing to the use of glycolytic intermediates, which are normally destined for oxidative phosphorylation, in anabolic reactions and activation of the cell death machinery by stimulating mitochondrial membrane permeabilization could therefore be promising therapeutic approaches.
Journal ArticleDOI

Biologically active sphingolipids in cancer pathogenesis and treatment.

TL;DR: This work has shown that ceramide — a central molecule in sphingolipid metabolism — in effect functions as a tumour-suppressor lipid, inducing antiproliferative and apoptotic responses in various cancer cells, and that S1P induces responses that, on aggregate, render S 1P a tumours-promoting lipid.
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