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Blocking fatty acid synthesis reduces lung tumor growth in mice

Tumors often overexpress enzymes that synthesize fatty acids, but the requirement for fatty acid synthesis in tumor growth is unclear. A new fatty acid–synthesis inhibitor blunts lung tumor growth in mice, which implicates this process as a targetable liability.

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Figure 1: Oncogenes stimulate cancer cells to take up nutrients and convert them to acetyl-CoA through a set of metabolic pathways (dashed line).

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Correspondence to Ralph J DeBerardinis.

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R.J.D. is an advisor for Agios Pharmaceuticals.

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Kim, J., DeBerardinis, R. Blocking fatty acid synthesis reduces lung tumor growth in mice. Nat Med 22, 1077–1078 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4195

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