Evidence for an alternative fatty acid desaturation pathway increasing cancer plasticity.
Nature 2019;
566:403-406. [PMID:
30728499 PMCID:
PMC6390935 DOI:
10.1038/s41586-019-0904-1]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 304] [Impact Index Per Article: 60.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2017] [Accepted: 12/20/2018] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
Most tumors have an aberrantly activated lipid metabolism1,2,
which enables them to synthesize, elongate and desaturate fatty acids to support
proliferation. However, only particular subsets of cancer cells are sensitive
toward approaches targeting fatty acid metabolism, and in particular fatty acid
desaturation3. This suggests that many
cancer cells harbor an unexplored plasticity in their fatty acid metabolism.
Here, we discover that some cancer cells can exploit an alternative fatty acid
desaturation pathway. We identify various cancer cell lines, murine
hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC), and primary human liver and lung carcinomas
that desaturate palmitate to the unusual fatty acid sapienate to support
membrane biosynthesis during proliferation. Accordingly, we found that sapienate
biosynthesis enables cancer cells to bypass the known stearoyl-CoA desaturase
(SCD)-dependent fatty acid desaturation. Thus, only by targeting both
desaturation pathways the in vitro and in vivo
proliferation of sapienate synthesizing cancer cells is impaired. Our discovery
explains metabolic plasticity in fatty acid desaturation and constitutes an
unexplored metabolic rewiring in cancers.
Collapse