Ayaz Najafov and Dario R. Alessi1
Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit, College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, Scotland
A remarkable trademark of most tumors is their ability to break down glucose by glycolysis at a vastly higher rate than in normal tissues, even when oxygen is copious. This phenomenon, known as the Warburg effect, enables rapidly dividing tumor
cells to generate essential biosynthetic building blocks such as nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids from glycolytic intermediates to permit growth and duplication of cellular components during division (1). An assumption dominating research in this area is that the Warburg effect is specific to cancer.