How cancer cells fuel their growth
Cancer cells are notorious for their ability to divide uncontrollably and generate hordes of new tumor cells. Most of the fuel consumed by these rapidly proliferating cells is glucose, a type of sugar. Scientists had believed that most of the cell mass that makes up new cells, including cancer cells, comes from that glucose. However, MIT biologists have now found, to their surprise, that the largest source for new cell material is amino acids, which cells consume in much smaller quantities. The findings offer a new way to look at cancer cell metabolism, a field of research that scientists hope will yield new drugs that cut off cancer cells’ ability to grow and divide. “If you want to successfully target cancer metabolism, you need to understand something about how different pathways are being used to actually make mass,” says Matthew Vander Heiden, the Eisen and Chang Career Development Associate Professor of Biology and...