Why Sugar Breakdown Matters Beyond Energy—New Insights Into How It Makes Cells Move

Why sugar breakdown matters beyond energy—new insights into how it makes cells move

It has long been known that our bodies derive energy from sugar. Researchers at RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau have now discovered that sugar breakdown produces an intermediate product that is also crucial for the motility of human cells. The new findings, published in Nature Cell Biology, are likely to be relevant for understanding several biological processes, including cell migration in embryonic development, the migration of metastati…

How does sugar breakdown drive cell movement?

Metabolism moonlighting as motion control New experiments show that the chemistry of sugar does more than fuel cells: products of sugar breakdown and a familiar metabolic enzyme directly influence the machinery that makes cells move and divide. Researchers found that metabolites produced during…