Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition

© 2020 American Association for Cancer Research. A hallmark of metastasis is the adaptation of tumor cells to new environments. Metabolic constraints imposed by the serine and glycine–limited brain environment restrict metastatic tumor growth. How brain metastases overcome these growth-prohibitive c...

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Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134555
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collection MIT
description © 2020 American Association for Cancer Research. A hallmark of metastasis is the adaptation of tumor cells to new environments. Metabolic constraints imposed by the serine and glycine–limited brain environment restrict metastatic tumor growth. How brain metastases overcome these growth-prohibitive conditions is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that 3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH), which catalyzes the rate-limiting step of glucose-derived serine synthesis, is a major determinant of brain metastasis in multiple human cancer types and preclinical models. Enhanced serine synthesis proved important for nucleotide production and cell proliferation in highly aggressive brain metastatic cells. In vivo, genetic suppression and pharmacologic inhibition of PHGDH attenuated brain metastasis, but not extracranial tumor growth, and improved overall survival in mice. These results reveal that extracellular amino acid availability determines serine synthesis pathway dependence, and suggest that PHGDH inhibitors may be useful in the treatment of brain metastasis. SIGNIFICANCE: Using proteomics, metabolomics, and multiple brain metastasis models, we demonstrate that the nutrient-limited environment of the brain potentiates brain metastasis susceptibility to serine synthesis inhibition. These findings underscore the importance of studying cancer metabolism in physiologically relevant contexts, and provide a rationale for using PHGDH inhibitors to treat brain metastasis.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1345552022-09-30T17:55:33Z Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition © 2020 American Association for Cancer Research. A hallmark of metastasis is the adaptation of tumor cells to new environments. Metabolic constraints imposed by the serine and glycine–limited brain environment restrict metastatic tumor growth. How brain metastases overcome these growth-prohibitive conditions is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that 3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH), which catalyzes the rate-limiting step of glucose-derived serine synthesis, is a major determinant of brain metastasis in multiple human cancer types and preclinical models. Enhanced serine synthesis proved important for nucleotide production and cell proliferation in highly aggressive brain metastatic cells. In vivo, genetic suppression and pharmacologic inhibition of PHGDH attenuated brain metastasis, but not extracranial tumor growth, and improved overall survival in mice. These results reveal that extracellular amino acid availability determines serine synthesis pathway dependence, and suggest that PHGDH inhibitors may be useful in the treatment of brain metastasis. SIGNIFICANCE: Using proteomics, metabolomics, and multiple brain metastasis models, we demonstrate that the nutrient-limited environment of the brain potentiates brain metastasis susceptibility to serine synthesis inhibition. These findings underscore the importance of studying cancer metabolism in physiologically relevant contexts, and provide a rationale for using PHGDH inhibitors to treat brain metastasis. 2021-10-27T20:05:34Z 2021-10-27T20:05:34Z 2020 2021-07-23T18:41:14Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134555 en 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-19-1228 Cancer Discovery Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) PMC
spellingShingle Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition
title Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition
title_full Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition
title_fullStr Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition
title_full_unstemmed Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition
title_short Limited Environmental Serine and Glycine Confer Brain Metastasis Sensitivity to PHGDH Inhibition
title_sort limited environmental serine and glycine confer brain metastasis sensitivity to phgdh inhibition
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134555