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News
A backup system in cells once thought impossible to exist has been discovered by researchers at Montana State University. The pathway allows cells to produce the essential amino acid cysteine even when their primary systems fail — and cancer cells may be using the same trick to dodge treatment. Disabling it could make tumors significantly more vulnerable to existing therapies.
For decades, scientists believed that cells couldn't survive without at least one functioning disulfide reductase system — the machinery responsible for converting cystine into cysteine, an amino acid essential for life. That assumption was upended when genetically engineered mice, lacking any known mechanism to make cysteine, survived anyway. After nine years of investigation, MSU molecular geneticist Ed Schmidt and his team finally cracked the mystery: cells have a hidden backup pathway that severs a carbon-sulfur bond in cystine to release usable cysteine when the primary system fails. The findings were published in Nature Chemical Biology.
The backup system likely evolved in early multicellular organisms as a defense against electrophilic toxins — harmful organic molecules produced by other organisms. But there's a catch: cancer cells may be exploiting this same pathway to survive chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: This discovery redefines a long-held biological assumption and opens a potential new front in cancer treatment — not necessarily by developing new drugs, but by targeting a hidden cellular defense that may be helping tumors survive.
