Scientists discover an “impossible” cellular survival pathway that could help fight cancer

A molecular geneticist at Montana State University has uncovered a previously unknown survival mechanism that allows mammalian cells to produce the amino acid cysteine even when the cellular systems normally responsible for supplying it stop working. Scientists once thought this kind of survival was impossible.

The finding, published in Nature Chemical Biology , could eventually point researchers toward new ways to make some cancers more vulnerable to treatment.

"All cells need a constant supply of an amino acid called cysteine in order to stay alive," said the paper's lead author Ed Schmidt, a professor of genetics and development in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology in MSU's College of Agriculture. "Yet cysteine is not available outside of the cells."