094《经济学家》读译参考之九十四：断了肿瘤活路-肿瘤治疗新发现.docVIP

TEXT 94 Cancer biology 肿瘤生物学 Cramping tumours 断了肿瘤的活路（陈继龙 编译） Jan 18th 2007 From The Economist print edition An old observation about cancer cells may lead to a new treatment 早年发现的肿瘤细胞的一个特征可能为治疗肿瘤打开新路子 CANCER cells manage their energy production in a most peculiar way.（1）A healthy cell relies on its mitochondria[1] (descendants of bacteria that took up residence in the single-celled ancestors of animals and plants about 2 billion years ago) to oxidise sugar molecules and release useful energy. Most cancer cells, however, use a less efficient mechanism called glycolysis[2] to power themselves. They thus cut their mitochondria out of the loop. 肿瘤细胞产生能量的方式极为特别。正常细胞依靠线粒体（是由大约20亿年前寄居在单细胞动植物祖先体内的细菌演化而来）氧化糖分子从而释放有用的能量，而大多数肿瘤细胞则通过糖酵解作用来为自身供能。这种作用机制效率较低，但不需要线粒体参与。 That cancer cells often rely on glycolysis was discovered by Otto Warburg in 1930. （2）But until recently the Warburg effect, as it has come to be known, was little more than a curiosity—and a contentious one at that[3]. Now, it looks a lot more interesting, for Evangelos Michelakis and his colleagues at the University of Alberta, in Canada, are testing a drug called dichloroacetate that suppresses the Warburg effect and reactivates the mitochondria. The result shows why mitochondrial suppression is so important to tumours: when they are unsuppressed, the tumour they are in stops growing. 肿瘤细胞通常依靠糖酵解供能是Otto Warburg于1930年发现的，但这一被后人称为“Warburg效应”的现象一直以来只是让人感到好奇而已，而且还颇有争议。现在，此效应引起了更多的关注——加拿大阿尔贝达大学的Evangelos Michelakis及其同事们正在试验一种名为二氯醋酸、能够抑制Warburg效应并激活线粒体的药物。为何线粒体抑制对肿瘤如此重要从试验结果可见一斑：当线粒体未受到抑制时，线粒体所在的肿瘤就会停止生长。 At first sight, this is all terribly paradoxical. Cancer cells multiply rapidly—and such multiplication requires a lot of energy. Normally, glycolysis is merely the prelude to energy production. It breaks glucose down into molecules called pyruvate that are fed to the mitochondria for processing. This breakdown yields some energy, but not much. （3）However, it does not require oxygen—a substance that cancer cells are