Mitochondrial Bioenergetics in Cancer Cell Biology

Dear Colleagues,

Mitochondria are essential organelles in mammalian cells and play a key role in many processes, including oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), aerobic metabolism of glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids, calcium and reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis and signaling, and apoptosis. Tumor cells exhibit profound genetic, biochemical and histological differences compared to non-transformed cellular types. Many tumor cells predominantly convert glucose to lactate to generate Adenosine 5’-triphosphate (ATP) and biomass; however, glycolysis becomes the main metabolic pathway for the cell energy supply when mitochondria are impaired or when cells experience hypoxic conditions. Nonetheless, many evidence indicate the essential need of functioning mitochondria for tumor cells survival and tumor propagation.

Cancer cells have to acquire a flexible and variable metabolism to face and survive the many stress conditions such as hypoxia, low glucose and other nutrients deficiency, exposure to low pH and high ROS levels. Therefore, tumor cells have to reprogramme their metabolism at many levels and mitochondria take a pivotal part in this task, thus becoming essential to driving disease progression.

The aim of this Special Issue of Cells is to collect and publish high quality original papers, research communications, and reviews exploring the involvement of mitochondria in cancer cells metabolism adaptation particularly focusing on bioenergetics.

Prof. Dr. Alessandra Baracca
Prof. Dr. Giancarlo Solaini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• transport
• oxidative phosphorylation
• respiratory chain complexes
• ATP synthase
• reactive oxygen/nitrogen species
• redox biology
• metabolism reprogramming
• metabolism regulation
• aminoacids metabolism
• fatty acids metabolism
• pyruvate/lactate metabolism
• hypoxia
• mitochondria-related signaling pathway
• tumor
• anti-tumor drug