A “Weird” Mitochondrial Fatty Acid Oxidation as a Metabolic “Secret” of Cancer

Table 1

P/O ratio and oxygen consumption in the combustion of glucose and palmitate.

Metabolic pathway	P/O ratio	Oxygen consumption per mol ATP
Glycolysis+Krebs cycle+MAS	2.66	0.1875 moles O2
β-oxidation+Krebs cycle	2.13	0.235 moles O2
β-oxidation shuttle	1.86	0.269 moles O2
β-oxidation shuttle+FAS	0.79	0.640 moles O2

P/O: phosphate/oxygen ratio; MAS: malate-aspartate shuttle; FAS: fatty acid synthesis. 1.25 times higher O₂ consumption compared to “glycolysis+Krebs cycle+MAS”. 1.43 times higher O₂ consumption compared to “glycolysis+Krebs cycle+MAS”. 3.41 times higher O₂ consumption compared to “glycolysis+Krebs cycle+MAS”.