A tumour's genetic mutations often dictate which metabolic pathways it uses for rapid growth, but the tissue it develops from can also be an important factor.
Matthew Vander Heiden at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and his colleagues studied tumours that bore mutations in two genes — Kras and Trp53 — and that grew in either the lung or the pancreas in mice. They found that lung tumours tended to incorporate certain amino acids into proteins, and to use these amino acids as a source of nitrogen. But in the pancreas, the tumours relied less heavily on metabolizing the amino acids than the lung tumours did.
Personalized treatments for cancer should take into account both a tumour's genetics and its location, the authors say.
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Location matters in cancer growth. Nature 537, 283 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/537283f
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/537283f
