cancers Review Metabolic Regulation of Epigenetic Modifications and Cell Differentiation in Cancer Pasquale Saggese 1, Assunta Sellitto 2 , Cesar A. Martinez 1, Giorgio Giurato 2 , Giovanni Nassa 2 , Francesca Rizzo 2 , Roberta Tarallo 2 and Claudio Scafoglio 1,* 1 Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA;
[email protected] (P.S.);
[email protected] (C.A.M.) 2 Laboratory of Molecular Medicine and Genomics, Department of Medicine, Surgery and Dentistry ‘Scuola Medica Salernitana’, University of Salerno, 84081 Baronissi (SA), Italy;
[email protected] (A.S.);
[email protected] (G.G.);
[email protected] (G.N.);
[email protected] (F.R.);
[email protected] (R.T.) * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-310-825-9577 Received: 20 October 2020; Accepted: 11 December 2020; Published: 16 December 2020 Simple Summary: Cancer cells change their metabolism to support a chaotic and uncontrolled growth. In addition to meeting the metabolic needs of the cell, these changes in metabolism also affect the patterns of gene activation, changing the identity of cancer cells. As a consequence, cancer cells become more aggressive and more resistant to treatments. In this article, we present a review of the literature on the interactions between metabolism and cell identity, and we explore the mechanisms by which metabolic changes affect gene regulation. This is important because recent therapies under active investigation target both metabolism and gene regulation. The interactions of these new therapies with existing chemotherapies are not known and need to be investigated.