Targeting cancer metabolism

摘要

Compounds that inhibit mutated metabolic enzymes may shift cancer cells into a more benign state. Mutations in two metabolic genes - IDH1 and IDH2 - drive the growth of some tumours. Katharine Yen at Agios Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ingo Mellinghoff at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and their colleagues found a compound that selectively inhibits a mutated form of the IDH1 protein. In cells that carry these mutations, the inhibitor blocked formation of a cancer-associated metabolite.