Authors: Ginevra Doglioni, Juan Fernández-García, Sebastian Igelmann, Patricia Altea-Manzano, Arnaud Blomme, Rita La Rovere, Xiao-Zheng Liu, Yawen Liu, Tine Tricot, Max Nobis, Ning An, Marine Leclercq, Sarah El Kharraz, Panagiotis Karras, Yu-Heng Hsieh, Fiorella A. Solari, Luiza Martins Nascentes Melo, Gabrielle Allies, Annalisa Scopelliti, Matteo Rossi, Ines Vermeire, Dorien Broekaert, Ana Margarida Ferreira Campos, Patrick Neven, Marion Maetens, Karen Van Baelen, H. Furkan Alkan, Mélanie Planque, Giuseppe Floris, Albert Sickmann,
Alpaslan Tasdogan, Jean-Christophe Marine, Colinda L. G. J. Scheele, Christine Desmedt, Geert Bultynck, Pierre Close & Sarah-Maria Fendt
Nature (2025) – Aspartate signalling drives lung metastasis via alternative translation.
A team of researchers from the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology has discovered that the availability of the substance aspartate is a reason why cancers often spread to the lungs. The study has been published in the scientific journal Nature.
In more than half of cancer patients who develop metastases, these develop in the lungs. Scientists have long been looking for reasons why the lungs are a place in the body where cancer cells move to.
In a new study, the team of professor Sarah-Maria Fendt (VIB-KU Leuven) looked at the translation process in the cells of aggressive metastases in the lungs. Translation is the process in which genes are used to make proteins. A change in this process can make it easier for cancer cells to grow.
Many proteins in our body can influence the translation process. One such protein is eIF5A, which initiates translation. In the cells of lung metastases, researchers found an altered form of eIF5A, called ‘hypusination’, which was associated with a higher aggressiveness of lung metastases.
The researchers also discovered that this altered form of eIF5A was produced by the amino acid aspartate. Aspartate was not taken up by the cancer cells, but activated a receptor on the surface of the cells. This led to a series of signals that ultimately caused hypusination. Through the process of translation, the cancer cells were then able to spread more easily in the lungs.
