DISCUSSION ON TUMOR RESPIRATION 233 



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PHOSPHORYLATION THEORIES AND TUMOR 



METABOLISM 



VAN R. POTTER 

 McArdle Memorial Laboratory, University of Wisconsin 



I should like to submit briefly for your consideration a working 

 hypothesis concerning the metabolism of tumor tissue. This hypothe- 

 sis is grounded in the Embden-Meyerhof scheme of carbohydrate 

 breakdown, the Warburg descriptions of tumor metabolism and the 

 concept of phosphate energy transfer recently put forth by Johnson. 

 It is difficult if not impossible actually to prove such theories, and 

 hence one must be satisfied with data that do not prove but are 

 merely compatible with the given concept. Only after a great mass 

 of circumstantial evidence has accumulated can we begin to have 

 confidence in the theory. During the accumulation of these data the 

 hypothesis is necessarily modified in the light of incompatible data. 

 It is such incompatible data which probably will soon be brought to 

 bear upon the hypothesis I am about to present. 



According to this hypothesis, tumor tissue uses its adenosine tri- 

 phosphate (ATP) reservoir for but two main purposes, growth and 

 glucose phosphorylation, in contrast with most other tissues, which 

 in addition have function and thus do work and presumably split 

 ATP in doing it. Since the growth stimulus is ever present in tumor 

 tissue, inorganic phosphate is released in large enough quantities 

 to permit rapid glycolysis (in the sense of carbohydrate cleavage), 



