Metabolic Pathway Confusion in Cancer Cells

The mitochondria in cancer cells are operational and still take in oxygen, but they are not linked to ATP production through oxygen. Instead, they use glutamine fermentation to produce ATP and provide nitrogen for synthesizing DNA and RNA. Cancer cells utilize both glucose fermentation for cell growth and energy production, as well as glutamine fermentation for synthesizing biomolecules and additional energy. Simply targeting either glucose or glutamine alone will not be effective in killing cancer cells, both pathways must be targeted together.