Researchers from Drexel University’s College of Medicine have identified a critical metabolic vulnerability in breast cancer that has spread to the brain, offering a promising new therapeutic target for a disease with few effective treatment options. When this weakness is targeted, cancer cells undergo cell death. The study found that an enzyme called acetyl-CoA synthetase 2, or ACSS2, enables brain metastatic breast cancer cells to evade ferroptosis, a form of iron-dependent cell death. Importantly, this is the first study to demonstrate that breast cancer cells growing in the brain must suppress ferroptosis in order to survive. The findings were recently published in the journal Cancer Research.
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