Preference of mitochondrial respiration over the Warbrg effect in breast tumor initiating cells in conditions of oxygen and glucose deprivation.

Background: cancer cells rely on glycolysis as main ATP source (Warbrg effect). Tumor-initiating cells (TICs) are the fraction of cells that give raise and repopulate tumors. TICs are exposed to prolonged periods of oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD), as they live in a hypoxic niche and they withstand prolonged lack of blood vessels during initial tumorigenesis or metastasis formation (avascular phase). Warbrg effect is energetically inefficient; we hypothesize that TICs might have differential metabolic features. Tumor eradication requires killing TICS; finding such features would have therapeutic implications.

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