TKT and cancer: Ramos-Montoya et al. (2006) recently demonstrated the relevance of PPP oxidative/non-odidative balance for cancer cell survival. Combinatorial application of the inhibitors methotrexate, DHEA, and OT which address different enzyme activities necessary for the utilization of glucose for the synthesis of nucleic acids, resulted in an almost complete inhibition of cancer cell proliferation (Ramos-Montoya et al. 2006). Also, inhibition of transketolase enzyme reactions by small molecules has been demonstrated to suppress proliferation in cancer cell lines (Du et al. 2004).