Fig. 3: Metabolic dependencies of brain and MFP tumours.
From: Nutrient requirements of organ-specific metastasis in breast cancer
a, Schematic of direct implantation of control or auxotroph cells expressing Gluc into the brain or MFP of mice, with tumour growth monitored over time via blood luminescence. MDA-MB-231–Gluc and HCC1806–Gluc cells were injected into NSG mice; EO771–Gluc cells were injected into B6 mice. Created in BioRender. Abbott, K. (2025) https://BioRender.com/e78ptc1. b, Petal plots illustrating auxotroph tumour growth relative to controls. Each petal represents a cell line and tumour site; petal length reflects relative tumour growth of auxotrophs versus controls. c, Petal plots showing growth distributions of auxotroph versus control tumours. Data are mean ± 95% confidence interval; n = 2–10 biologically independent mice per group with exact numbers reported in the Source Data. Plots were derived from Extended Data Fig. 11. Cell lines and tumour sites are as in b. d, Scatter plot correlating auxotroph dependency for brain growth based on route of cell delivery. Axes show log2 fold change in tumour growth of knockout versus control cells following intracranial (x axis) or intracardiac (y axis) injections. Data are mean ± s.e.m.; n = 2–10 biologically independent mice per group (exact numbers are in Extended Data Figs. 8 and 11). Two-sided Pearson correlation coefficient and exact P value are provided in figure panel. e, Scatter plots of average metabolite concentrations in MFP IF and CSF (proxy for brain) versus auxotroph dependency for growth in each site (log2 fold depletion of knockout relative to control). Symbols represent tissue metabolite concentrations. Data are mean ± s.e.m.; n = 3–7 biologically independent mice per group, with exact numbers reported in the Source Data. PYCR denotes PYCR1/2/3 triple knockout. Experiments were performed once.
