Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH), succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), fumarate hydratase (FH): three players for one phenotype in cancer?

In the early 1920s Otto Warburg observed that cancer cells have altered metabolism and from this, posited that mitochondrial dysfunction underpinned the aetiology of cancers. The more recent identification of mutations of mitochondrial metabolic enzymes in a wide range of human cancers has now provided a direct link between metabolic alterations and cancer. In this review we discuss the consequences of dysfunction of three metabolic enzymes involved in or associated with the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle: succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), fumarate hydratase (FH) and isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) focusing on the similarity between the phenotypes of cancers harbouring these mutations.