FIGURE 2.

Fatty acid metabolism and points of intervention to overcome chemoresistance. Fatty acid metabolism plays a critical role in chemoresistant cancer cells. Aberrant metabolism contributes to the survival and proliferation of malignant cells. Importantly, the key enzymes catalyzing the processes in fatty acid metabolism have been recognized to express abnormally in cancer chemoresistance. Hence, it is a novel strategy using inhibitors to target the key enzymes to intervene the aberrant metabolism and overcome chemoresistance in cancer. Some common inhibitors of the key enzymes are shown above. ATP-citrate lyase (ACLY), acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC), fatty acid synthase (FASN), stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD), carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT1).