Nat Med: methionine is the metabolic dependence of tumor initiating cells

May 23, 2019 / BIOON / - understanding cell metabolism has great potential for developing new therapies for cancer metabolic pathways Compared with normal tissue, the metabolic pathway of massive tumor cells has changed However, cancer cells in tumor are heterogeneous, and tumor initiating cells (TICs) are important therapeutic targets, but their metabolic characteristics are not clear Photo source: in order to understand the metabolic changes of Nature Medicine, researchers from the Genome Research Institute of Singapore Bureau of science, technology and research, Nanyang University of technology and National University of Singapore conducted metabonomics and metabolite tracking analysis on tics The results showed that tics had high level of methionine cycle activity and methylation rate, which was driven by mat2a The researchers found that high methionine cycle activity led to the consumption of methionine far more than its regeneration, leading to exogenous methionine addiction By using drugs to inhibit the methionine cycle, even for a brief period of time, the researchers found that they could impair the ability of these cells to start tumors In addition, the researchers also demonstrated that the methionine cycle flux has a specific effect on the epigenetic state of cancer cells and drives tumor development In general, methionine cyclase is also abundant in other tumor types, and the expression of MAT2A will affect the sensitivity of some cancer cells to treatment inhibition Reference: Zhenxun Wang et al Methionine is a metabolic dependency of tumor initiating cells Nature medicine DOI http://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0423-5