A small point of fact is that Otto Warburg actually got his Nobel Prize in 1931 for his work on glycolysis -- showing that cellular respiration was enzymatic in nature. Later he worked on respiration by tumour slices, and found that they showed a higher rate of glycolysis than normal tissues. He thought that this might be the cause of malignant behaviour; subsequently it became clear that this wasn't the case. However, his classical observations that glycolysis is enhanced in tumours have stood the test of time, and may be explained (at least in part) by the fact that HIF is commonly activated in cancer.

While in VHL associated tumors this is probably due to HIF stabilisation, in many other tumours it is probably due to hypoxia acting through HIF.

-- Patrick Maxwell, M.D., FRCP, Ph.D., University Lecturer & Consultant Physician, Wellcome Trust centre for Human Genetics, Oxford, England.

As printed in the VHL Family Forum 8:4, December 2000. For permission to reprint, please contact VHL Family Alliance, editor@vhl.org. Further information is available from the VHL Family Alliance, info@vhl.org.