Glutamine addiction and therapeutic strategies in pancreatic cancer

Figure 1 Metabolism of glutamine in pancreatic cancer. Glutamine enters the cells through four receptors (SLC1, SLC6, SLC7, and SLC38) and can be incorporated into various metabolic pathways either as a nitrogen source or as a carbon source, which is important for the synthesis of nucleotides, non-essential amino acids, glucosamine and gluconeogenesis, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and glutathione metabolism. Under normal physiological conditions, glutamine can be converted to α-ketoglutarate by canonical pathway to replenish the TCA cycle metabolites, which is differ from the non-canonical pathway of glutamine using in pancreatic cancer. TCA: Tricarboxylic acid; αKG: α-ketoglutarate; GOT1: Aspartate transaminase; OAA: Oxaloacetate; GLUD1: Glutamate dehydrogenase; NEAAs: Non-essential amino acids.