Microenvironmental Aspartate Preserves Leukemic Cells from Therapy-Induced Metabolic Collapse.

Metabolic dialogue between tumors and their microenvironment emerges as a key regulator of chemoresistance, the major barrier for the treatment of several cancers. In this issue of Cell Metabolism, van Gastel et al. decipher the pivotal role of stromal glutamine-derived aspartate to sustain pyrimidine biosynthesis in chemoresistant acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and thus state it as a target for anti-cancer therapy.