bims-instec 2026-08-09 papers

Nat Metab. 2026 Aug 05.

Palmitate promotes liver metastases by decreasing neutrophil antitumour behaviour.

Anke Vandekeere, Juan Fernández-García, Yiming Peng-Winkler, Miguel Martín Pérez, Ming Liu, Sara Isabel Fernandes, Janine Theile, Philipp Willnow, Sanne Verheul, Gitte Zels, Anirudh Pabba, Christine Desmedt, Cornelis Verhoef, Patricia Altea-Manzano, Salvador Aznar Benitah, Ilaria Elia, Ilaria Malanchi, Sarah-Maria Fendt.

Liver metastases are frequent and challenging to treat owing to the liver's metabolically active and immune-tolerant environment. However, how cancer cells exploit nutrient availability in the liver to evade immune surveillance remains unknown. Here we show that cancer cells use the palmitate availability in the liver to impair the neutrophil antitumour function. Mechanistically, we find that breast and colorectal cancer cells metastasizing to the liver, but not the lung, require the palmitoyltransferase 17 (DHHC17, gene name ZDHHC17) to stabilize laminin-511 enabling its secretion. In turn, neutrophils in the liver metastasis environment respond to laminin-511 by decreasing their cancer cell-killing capacity. Consistently, silencing ZDHHC17 in cancer cells decreases liver metastases only in the presence of neutrophils, while metastasis growth is restored in ZDHHC17-silenced metastases upon injection of laminin-511 or inhibition of neutrophil degranulation. Taken together, we find that liver palmitate not only supports tumour intrinsic processes but also enables immune evasion.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-026-01582-0

Nature. 2026 Aug 05.

ZFP36L2 orchestrates stress-adaptive plasticity in regeneration and cancer.

Phenotypic plasticity is a hallmark of cancer1; however the molecular switches required for cell-fate reprogramming are poorly understood. During intestinal wound-healing and colorectal cancer (CRC) metastasis, differentiated cells can dynamically dedifferentiate into an intestinal stem cell (ISC) state to drive epithelial regeneration and metastatic outgrowth2-10. Here we show that the RNA-binding protein ZFP36L2, which is mutated in 5-10% of CRC11-15, is a pivotal stress-responsive orchestrator of dynamic dedifferentiation. In mouse colon regeneration models, ZFP36L2 ablation inhibits dedifferentiation, ISC gene expression and function and impairs intestinal regeneration. In human CRC, loss of ZFP36L2 function abrogates metastatic seeding and the outgrowth of LGR5+ canonical metastases while promoting lineage plasticity and non-canonical differentiation into heterogeneous cell states. Mechanistically, ZFP36L2 binds to stress-associated mRNAs that contain AU-rich 3' untranslated regions, which induces the formation of dynamic biomolecular condensates associated with mRNA degradation and termination of the stress response. Together, these data show that ZFP36L2 acts as an important molecular switch that couples stress sensing with phenotypic plasticity. This in turn drives cellular dedifferentiation essential for re-establishing the ISC state during wound healing and metastasis. In ZFP36L2-deficient CRC, the inability to re-enter the LGR5+ state during metastatic outgrowth promotes non-canonical lineage plasticity, which is associated with poor clinical outcomes.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10890-0

Elife. 2026 Aug 05. pii: RP106492. [Epub ahead of print]14

Microenvironmental arginine restriction sensitizes pancreatic cancers to polyunsaturated fatty acids by suppression of lipid synthesis.

Nutrient limitation is a characteristic feature of poorly perfused tumors. In contrast to well-perfused tissues, nutrient deficits in tumors impose metabolic constraints on cancer cells. The metabolic constraints created by the tumor microenvironment can lead to vulnerabilities in cancers. Identifying the metabolic constraints of the tumor microenvironment and the vulnerabilities that arise in cancers can provide new insight into tumor biology and identify promising anti-neoplastic targets. To identify how the microenvironment constrains the metabolism of pancreatic tumors, we challenged pancreatic cancer cells with microenvironmental nutrient levels and analyzed changes in cellular metabolism. We found that arginine limitation in pancreatic tumors perturbs saturated and monounsaturated fatty acid synthesis by suppressing the lipogenic transcription factor SREBP1, in part via activation of the amino acid sensor GCN2. Synthesis of these fatty acids is critical for maintaining a balance of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in cellular membranes. Because of microenvironmental constraints on fatty acid synthesis, pancreatic cancer cells and tumors are unable to maintain lipid homeostasis when exposed to PUFAs, leading to cell death by ferroptosis. In sum, arginine restriction in the tumor microenvironment constrains lipid metabolism in pancreatic cancers, which renders these tumors vulnerable to polyunsaturated-enriched fats.

Keywords: biochemistry; cancer; cancer biology; chemical biology; diet; human; metabolism; mouse; stress; synthetic lethality; tumor microenvironment

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.106492

Cell Stem Cell. 2026 Aug 06. pii: S1934-5909(26)00265-1. [Epub ahead of print]33(8): 1246-1248

The price of plasticity: Losing colon identity to gain metastatic potential.

Bianca Băloiu, Hugo J G Snippert.

The generation of highly plastic cell states in colorectal cancer that are prone to metastatic dissemination involves complex epigenetic reprogramming, rather than new genetic traits. Goto et al.1 implement a serial orthotopic organoid transplantation framework to uncover the idea that losing Gata6, a guardian of the colonic lineage, promotes metastatic competence.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2026.07.005

Drug Resist Updat. 2026 Aug 02. pii: S1368-7646(26)00113-5. [Epub ahead of print]89 101462

Targeting a novel metabolic vulnerability of non-small cell lung cancer to fatty acid oxidation surmounts chemoresistance.

AIMS: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with platinum drugs develop chemoresistance. C/EBPβ has alternative translational LAP and LIP isoforms which impact cancer chemoresistance by modulating ABC efflux transporter expression and activity. Differential alternative translation of LAP:LIP reprograms metabolism in murine embryonic fibroblasts; however, little is known in cancer. To target possible metabolic vulnerabilities, we herein investigated whether LAP/LIP rewires NSCLC cell metabolism towards a chemoresistant phenotype.
METHODS: LAP- or LIP-overexpressing NSCLC cells were screened for anticancer drug sensitivity, DNA damage and ABC exporter expression and function. Metabolome/lipidome analyses and functional metabolic assays were performed to identify possible chemosensitizing agents. Tumor growth, mass spectrometry imaging and single-cell RNA-sequencing were determined in Hu-CD34+NSG xenografts.
RESULTS: LAP induced chemoresistance by increasing ABCB1/ABCC1/ABCC2 levels, activity and oxidative DNA damage. Furthermore, LAP altered metabolome and lipidome composition of plasma membrane and mitochondria, and upregulated HADHA and CPT1A, key enzymes in fatty acid oxidation (FAO). The high metabolic flux through FAO and oxidative phosphorylation increased mitochondrial ATP levels, thereby fueling these ATP-driven multidrug efflux pumps. Conversely, LIP displayed the opposite effect. CPT1A knock-out or catalytically-inactive mutant, FAO inhibition with etomoxir or trimetazidine, surmounted chemoresistance. In LAPhigh chemoresistant immune-xenografts, etomoxir redistributed fatty acids within tumor immune-microenvironment (TIME), metabolically reprogrammed NK cells and enhanced their anti-tumor activity.
CONCLUSION: Increased LAP:LIP ratio induced chemoresistance in NSCLC tumors by instigating a FAO-dependence, unveiling a metabolic vulnerability. FAO inhibition emerges as a novel chemosensitization strategy operating via rewiring tumor and TIME metabolism.

Keywords: C/EBP-β; Cisplatin resistance; Fatty acid oxidation; Non-small cell lung cancer

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drup.2026.101462

Nature. 2026 Aug 05.

A tumour-derived organoid biobank maps cancer gene dependencies.

OCCAMS Consortium

Cancer cell lines remain foundational for research and drug discovery, yet they incompletely capture tumour diversity, lack linked patient context, and have undergone adaptation to culture. Tumour organoids are three-dimensional cultures derived from patient tissue that offer a powerful complement to cell lines1. Here we derived and characterized 256 clinically annotated tumour organoids directly from colorectal, oesophageal, ovarian, pancreatic and gastric cancers as renewable, genetically stable models. Extensive characterization of each model and matched patient tumour samples included whole-genome and transcriptome sequencing, and genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screens across 162 organoids mapped gene dependencies. Integrative analyses revealed genomic and clinical markers of dependency across common and rare subtypes, identified organoid-specific essential genes, and revealed targetable vulnerabilities following tumour evolution in paired pre- and post-treatment samples. In colorectal cancer, functional and pharmacological interrogation of the EGFR-RAS-MAPK axis uncovered differential effects of KRAS variant alleles. This open, publicly available resource provides a systematic map of gene dependencies in patient-derived organoids, expanding the model diversity and mechanistic insight needed to advance precision oncology.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10830-y

Nature. 2026 Aug 05.

A compendium of next-generation patient-derived models for diverse cancers.

HCMI Network

The development of new therapeutics and the validation of pathogenetic cancer mechanisms require representative laboratory models1,2. However, existing collections represent only a fraction of the diversity observed in human cancer2-4. Recent technologies have enabled efficient in vitro model derivation (for example, tumour organoids)5. However, whether these maintain essential properties of patient tumours during long-term expansion has not been systematically investigated. Here we present results of a large-scale international programme-the Human Cancer Models Initiative-which involved the generation of a resource of 665 next-generation models from 2,780 donors with 25 cancer types and integrated tumour-model whole genome, exome, methylome and transcriptome analyses. The resource provides 522 models with comprehensive clinical data, 153 models of rare cancers and 71 models from participants with non-European ancestry. Analyses of 421 matched tumour-model pairs reveal high genetic (97.8%) and epigenetic (95%) concordance and define correlates of model discordance. Single-nucleus RNA sequencing of tumour-model pairs reveals subsets of models in which culture conditions significantly influence cell states. Finally, we characterize model preservation of extrachromosomal DNA and post-treatment mutational signatures to provide opportunities to study therapeutic resistance. This model repository is being made available to the community-including multimodal molecular profiling, clinical information and integrative software tools-thus providing a valuable resource for preclinical investigation of cancer pathogenesis and treatment response.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10806-y