Profiling and Quantitation of Metabolomic “Signatures” for Breast Cancer Cell Progression

IN T RODUC T ION Breast cancer is one of the top five cancers that affect human lives seriously. Therefore, it is of great importance to discover the best ways to study this disease. Metabolic reprogramming is required both during the initial breast cancer transformation process (primary tumor) and during the acquisition of metastatic potential (metastases), shown in Figure 1. The reprogramming process includes altered flux through glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), resulting in increased fatty acid synthesis needed for proliferation.