The context-specific roles of urea cycle enzymes in tumorigenesis.

The expression of the urea cycle (UC) proteins is dysregulated in multiple cancers, providing metabolic benefits to tumor survival, proliferation, and growth. Here, we review the main changes described in the expression of UC enzymes and metabolites in different cancers at various stages and suggest that these changes are dynamic and should hence be viewed in a context-specific manner. Understanding the evolvability in the activity of the UC pathway in cancer has implications for cancer-immune cell interactions and for cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Keywords

Ammonia, Carcinogenesis, Cell Line, Tumor, Cell Proliferation, Cell Transformation, Neoplastic, Gene Expression, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic, Humans, Urea, Urea Cycle Disorders, Inborn

Journal Title

Mol Cell

Journal ISSN

1097-2765
1097-4164

Volume Title

81

Publisher

Elsevier

Publisher DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2021.08.005

Rights and licensing

Except where otherwised noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Sponsorship

MRC (unknown)
Cancer Research UK (A27453)
European Research Council (819920)
Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12022/6)

Collections

University of Cambridge Research Outputs (Articles and Conferences)