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. 2020 Oct 9;183:114278. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2020.114278

Fig. 11.

Fig. 11

The role of acid-base transporters (ABTs) and carbonic anhydrases (CAs) in cancer. Numerous acid-base handling proteins are upregulated in rapidly proliferating tumor cells to help them dispose of metabolic acids and create an acidic microenvironment that disadvantages non-tumor cells in their vicinity. As most of these ABTs and CAs are gainfully expressed elsewhere in the body, therapies in development are focused on blocking those rarer targets that are preferentially expressed in the hypoxic tumor environment such as the monocarboxylate transporter MCT4 and CAIX. Other approached include exploiting the acidic milieu of the tumor for the targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs (see Section 6.6). NBCe1: electrogenic Na+/HCO3 cotransporter; NBCn1: electroneutral Na+/HCO3 cotransporter; NHE1: Na+/H+ exchanger 1; pHe: extracellular pH.