Cancer's sweet tooth for serine

Abstract

Exemplified by the cancer cell's preference for glycolysis (the Warburg effect), altered metabolism has taken centerstage as an emerging hallmark of cancer. Charting the landscape of cancer metabolic addictions should reveal new avenues for therapeutic attack. Two recent studies found subsets of human melanoma and breast cancers to have high levels of phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH), a key enzyme for serine biosynthesis, and these cancer cells are dependent on PHGDH for their growth and survival. Tumors may thus harbor distinct metabolic alterations to support their malignancy, and targeting enzymes such as PHGDH might prove a viable therapeutic strategy in this scenario. © 2010 BioMed Central Ltd.