Untangling the fiber yarn: butyrate feeds Warburg to suppress colorectal cancer.

Dietary composition has an important role in shaping the gut microbiota. In turn, changes in the diet directly impinge on bacterial metabolites present in the intestinal lumen. Whether such metabolites play a role in intestinal cancer has been a topic of hot debate. In this issue of Cancer Discovery, Donohoe and colleagues show that dietary fiber protects against colorectal carcinoma in a microbiota-dependent manner. Furthermore, fiber-derived butyrate acts as a histone deacetylase inhibitor, inhibiting cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis in colorectal cancer cells experiencing the Warburg effect. ©2014 American Association for Cancer Research.