Laboratory of Cellular Metabolism and Metabolic Regulation
We are tackling cancer and in particular metastasis formation as a metabolic disease. The rationale for this innovative approach is based on the fact that cancer and specifically metastasizing cells have to dynamically alter their cellular phenotype during disease progression, which in turn requires metabolic changes. Therefore, the overarching vision of my laboratory is to mechanistically dissect the metabolic vulnerabilities of (metastasizing) cancer cells in the context of the tumor microenvironment and the metastatic niche to define novel therapeutic approaches to prevent cancer progression.
Research areas
Human diseases Cancer BiologyModel organisms
Research topics
Research focus
Do cancer cells have placticity in their lipid metabolism?
Most tumours have an aberrantly activated lipid metabolism that enables them to synthesize, elongate and desaturate fatty acids to support proliferation. However, only particular subsets of cancer cells are sensitive to approaches that target fatty acid metabolism and, in particular, fatty acid desaturation. This suggests that many cancer cells contain an unexplored plasticity in their fatty acid metabolism. Here we discovered that some cancer cells can exploit an alternative fatty acid desaturation pathway. We identify various cancer cell lines, mouse hepatocellular carcinomas, and primary human liver and lung carcinomas that desaturate palmitate to the unusual fatty acid sapienate to support membrane biosynthesis during proliferation. Accordingly, we found that sapienate biosynthesis enables cancer cells to bypass the known fatty acid desaturation pathway that is dependent on stearoyl-CoA desaturase. Thus, only by targeting both desaturation pathways is the in vitro and in vivo proliferation of cancer cells that synthesize sapienate impaired. Our discovery explains metabolic plasticity in fatty acid desaturation and constitutes an unexplored metabolic rewiring in cancers.
Publications
To showcase the world-class scientific research of the Sarah-Maria Fendt Lab, you can discover their scientific papers in more detail.
Jobs
We are always on the lookout for highly motivated colleagues to join our team. If you are interested, please contact us.
Team
The Sarah-Maria Fendt Lab can only thrive thanks to the dedication and commitment of its people, no matter what their function or seniority.
Events
To stay up to date in rapidly developing fields, scientists regularly interact with (international) colleagues. Conferences and other (scientific) events are an excellent way to facilitate such a continent-spanning knowledge exchange.
