p53 regulation of metabolic pathways

During the course of tumorigenesis, cells acquire a number of alterations that contribute to the acquisition of themalignant phenotype, allowing them to survive and flourish in increas-ingly hostile environments. Cancer cells can be characterized by perturbations in the control of cell proliferation and growth, resistance to death, and alterations in their interactions with the microenvironment. Underpinning many of these changes are shifts in metabolism that allow cancer cells to use alternative pathways for energy production and building themacro-molecules necessary for growth, as well as regulating the generation of signaling molecules such as reactive oxygen species (ROS). In the past few years, it became clear that p53, the most studied, if notmost important, tumor suppressor protein, can also directly control meta-bolic traits of cells. Given the importance of metabolic repro-gramming in tumor development, it is no surprise that many oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes have been shown to help con-trol these pathways (DeBerardinis et al. 2008a; Tennant et al. 2009). In most cases, these effect