Title:Targeting Sugar Uptake and Metabolism for Cancer Identification and Therapy: An Overview
Volume: 18
Issue: 6
Author(s): Marina Tanasova*, Vagarshak V. Begoyan and Lukasz J. Weselinski
Affiliation:
- Department of Chemistry, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931,United States
Keywords:
Carbohydrate Uptake, GLUTs, Glycoconjugates, Nanoparticles, Imaging Agents, Uptake Inhibitors, Drug Delivery,
Cancer Imaging, Sugar-Disease Connection.
Abstract: Metabolic deregulations have emerged as a cancer characteristic, opening a broad avenue for
strategies and tools to target cancer through sugar uptake and metabolism. High expression levels of
sugar transporters in cancer cells offered glycoconjugation as an approach to achieve enhanced cellular
accumulation of drugs and imaging agents, with the sugar moiety anchoring the bioactive cargo to cancer
cells. On the other hand, high demand for sugar nutrients in cancers provided a new avenue to target
cancer cells with metabolic or sugar uptake inhibitors to induce cancer cells starvation or death. This
overview summarizes recent advances in targeting cancer cells through sugar transport for cancer detection
and therapy.
