This image shows the surprising overlap between lactate metabolism and the “pro-invasion” actin cytoskeleton changes within the mammary tumor.

We know that extracellular acidity drives the expression of invasive isoform of Mena (Mena^INV) ex-vivo. This observation demonstrated that indeed in vivo and within the tumor microenvironment this spliced variant of Mena (in green) is enriched in the cells expressing high levels of lactate dehydrogenase (in red) which marks the metabolic switch of the cells to produce more lactate from pyruvate and therefore acidify the extracellular space.