Science Spotlight: Espervita’s tumor metabolism target

Espervita Therapeutics Inc. and collaborators at McMaster University reduced the growth of hepatocellular carcinomas driven by metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in mice by targeting a vulnerability in tumor metabolism.

The Nature paper authors identified a small molecule inhibitor of ATP citrate lyase (ACLY), a metabolic enzyme that drives both tumor growth and immune suppression in MASH-HCC. They tested it in a newly developed mouse model of MASH-HCC that more accurately recapitulates the human features of the cancer...