Selective amino acid restriction therapy (SAART): a non-pharmacological strategy against all types of cancer cells

Metastasis will continue to be an incurable disease for most patients until we develop highly selective anticancer therapies. The development of these therapies requires finding and exploiting major differences between cancer cells and normal cells. Although the sum of the many DNA alterations of cancer cells makes up such a major difference, there is currently no way of exploiting these alterations as a whole. Here I propose a non-pharmacological strategy to selectively kill any type of cancer cell, including cancer stem cells, by exploiting their complete set of DNA alterations. It is based on creating challenging environmental conditions that only cells with undamaged DNAs can overcome. Cell survival requires continuous protein synthesis, which in turn requires adequate levels of 20 amino acids (AAs). If we temporarily restrict specific AAs and keep high levels of others whose deficit triggers proteolysis, we will force cells to activate a variety of genetic programs to obtain adequate levels of each of the 20 proteinogenic AAs. Because cancer cells have an extremely altered DNA that has evolved under particular environmental conditions, they may be unable to activate the genetic programs required to adapt to and survive the new environment. Cancer patients may be successfully treated with a protein-free artificial diet in which the levels of specific AAs are manipulated. Practical considerations for testing and implementing this cheap and universal anticancer strategy are discussed.