New method selectively inhibits lactate transporters and creates new therapeutic approaches

Image: Franzi Kreis/CeMM - A research group led by Giulio Superti-Furga of the Institute of Pharmacology at the Medical University and the CeMM Research Center has developed a new method that makes it possible to specifically inhibit important lactate transporters associated with cancer and numerous other diseases. This could provide a new starting point for the treatment of cancer in particular. The study has now been published in Cell Chemical Biology. Transporter proteins, the largest group of which is the family of solute carrier transporters (SlCs), are those proteins that are mostly located in the cell membrane and are responsible for the uptake and release of nutrients such as amino acids, sugars and nucleotides in a cell. They are thus also responsible for cell metabolism and play an essential role in both health and disease. Despite their important physiological role and although they are considered attractive therapeutic targets, most SLCs have not yet been sufficiently investigated pharmacologically. This is precisely what numerous scientists in the research group of Giulio Superti-Furga, scientific director at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine and professor at the Medical University of Vienna, are working on.