Shedding light on cancer metabolism in real-time with bioluminescence

© 2019 EPFL
© 2019 EPFL
Cancerous tumors can be made to bioluminesce, like fireflies, according to the level of their glucose uptake, giving rise to a technique for quantifying metabolite absorption. The firefly imaging technique for sugar can be translated from cancer to many other metabolic diseases. EPFL scientists have invented a new way to quantify - in real-time - glucose metabolism of cancerous tumors by making them bioluminesce. This new light probe is not radioactive and works on living organisms such as mice that carry the tumor cells. The technique requires tagged tumor cells, two jabs and a camera. The results are published . Take a mouse with a tumor tagged with luciferase.
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