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The complex role of nutrients in cancer spread

An in-depth analysis of nutrient availability across mouse tissues reveals their influence on the spread of cancer to other organs.
By
  1. Sandhya Yadav

    1. Sandhya Yadav is in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

  2. Tara TeSlaa

    1. Tara TeSlaa is in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA, at the Molecular Biology Institute, the Broad Stem Cell Research Center and at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles.

Decades of research has focused on understanding what drives cancer to spread to new sites in the body through a process called metastasis. This multistep event is a hallmark of cancer that is associated with malignancy and poor disease prognosis1. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop innovative treatment strategies2. Writing in Nature, Abbott et al.3 report their investigations of the metabolic requirements for the spread of breast cancer, which is a type of tumour that commonly metastasizes to the bones, lungs, brain and liver.

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Nature 649, 1116-1118 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03988-4

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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