Antitumoral effects of pharmacological ascorbate on gastric cancer cells: GLUT1 expression may not tell the whole story.

ABSTRACT

The recently reported results of Lu et al. (Theranostics. 2018; 8 1312-26) - highlighting GLUT1 expression as a marker for sensitivity of gastric cancer cells to therapeutic doses of ascorbate - are discussed in the light of additional factors potentially affecting the underlying processes, such as the concomitant expression of membrane gamma-glutamyltransferase activity, the resistance of cancer cells to oxidative injury and other known biomarkers.