A challenge of targeting glutamine metabolism in cancer is that tumor cells develop various strategies to adapt to glutamine limitation. We found that asparagine plays a critical role in supporting protein synthesis during glutamine starvation, highlighting a possible approach to optimize the therapeutic efficacy of targeting glutamine metabolism in cancer.
Keywords: asparaginase; asparagine; biology of malignant cells; glutamine; glutamine synthetase; mechanisms of oncogenesis and tumor progression; novel therapeutic targets; oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes; protein synthesis; tumor metabolism.