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Metabolism

Growth in the fat lane

Nature volume 520, pages 165–166 (2015)Cite this article

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Analysis of endothelial cells, which are involved in blood-vessel formation, unexpectedly reveals that proliferation in this cell type depends on fatty-acid oxidation to support DNA synthesis. See Article p.192

The formation of blood vessels requires the migration and proliferation of a vascular cell type called endothelial cells. Most cells assimilate the biomass and energy required for proliferation by converting abundant carbon sources such as sugars and amino acids into macromolecular building blocks. But on page 192 of this issue, Schoors et al.1 report that the oxidation of fatty acids to acetyl-CoA molecules generates an unexpected carbon source that is required in endothelial cells to produce nucleotides for DNA synthesis. Blocking fatty-acid oxidation suppresses endothelial-cell proliferation and protects mice from a common form of vision loss called retinopathy of prematurity, which is caused by uncontrolled blood-vessel formation.

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Figure 1: Metabolic pathways in blood-vessel formation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robert A. Egnatchik and Ralph J. DeBerardinis are at the Children's Medical Center Research Institute, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390–8502, USA.,

    Robert A. Egnatchik & Ralph J. DeBerardinis

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  1. Robert A. Egnatchik
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  2. Ralph J. DeBerardinis
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Correspondence to Ralph J. DeBerardinis.

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Egnatchik, R., DeBerardinis, R. Growth in the fat lane. Nature 520, 165–166 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14375

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