Targeting hyponitroxia in cancer therapy

Abstract

It was Oscar Wilde who said "nothing succeeds like excess." Tumors, in particular, subscribe to this creed of greed, avidly consuming glucose, glutamine and lipids while simultaneously overexpressing and stimulating signal transduction pathways in order to accelerate the rate of proliferation and progression. Nitricoxide (NO) is the rare exception to the success of excess in tumors since, in this case, less is more: at low "hyponitroxic" levels NO promotes proliferation while athigh levels NO suppresses it.