Aspartate is an endogenous metabolic limitation for tumour growth

Defining the metabolic limitations of tumour growth will help develop cancer therapies(1). Cancer cells proliferate slower in tumours than in standard culture conditions, indicating that a metabolic limitation may restrict cell proliferation in vivo. Aspartate synthesis can limit cancer cell proliferation when respiration is impaired(2–4); however, whether acquiring aspartate is endogenously limiting for tumour growth is unknown. We confirm aspartate has poor cell permeability, preventing environmental acquisition, whereas the related amino acid asparagine is available to cells in tumours, but cancer cells lack asparaginase activity to convert asparagine to aspartate. Heterologous expression of guinea pig asparaginase 1 (gpASNase1), an enzyme that produces aspartate from asparagine(5), confers the ability to use asparagine to supply intracellular aspartate to cancer cells in vivo. Tumours expressing gpASNase1 grow at a faster rate, indicating aspartate acquisition is an endogenous metabolic limitation for growth of some tumours. Tumours expressing gpASNase1 are also refractory to the growth suppressive effects of metformin, suggesting that metformin inhibits tumour growth by depleting aspartate. These findings suggest that therapeutic aspartate suppression could be effective to treat cancer.