Targeting Sugar Uptake and Metabolism for Cancer Identification and Therapy: An Overview

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.

Cite this article as:

Tanasova Marina *, Begoyan V. Vagarshak and Weselinski J. Lukasz , Targeting Sugar Uptake and Metabolism for Cancer Identification and Therapy: An Overview, Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry 2018; 18 (6) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1568026618666180523110837