Figure 4.

The role of CAD in cancer. Upstream of CAD and modification of the pyrimidine nucleotide metabolic pathway result in a wide variety of cancers. In normal cells, the need for pyrimidine is largely covered by the salvage pathway. In cancer cells, adaptive transformation from the salvage pathway into the de novo pyrimidine synthesis pathway benefits their high nucleotide requirement for malignant proliferation. Arrows with a solid or dotted line represent dominant or non-dominant metabolic flow in the pyrimidine nucleotide synthesis pathway. CPSI, carbamylphosphatesynthetase I. ASS1, argininosuccinate synthase.