Research Breakthrough: Researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered that blocking a key nutrient while also using immunotherapy could offer a promising new treatment strategy for around half of ovarian clear cell cancers, a disease with limited therapeutic options.
Clear cell ovarian cancer is a rare but especially difficult form of ovarian cancer, often resistant to standard chemotherapy. Many of these cancers have a mutation in a gene called ARID1A, which changes how the cancer cells process nutrients.
This study found that tumors with ARID1A mutations depend heavily on the amino acid alanine, pulling it into the cancer cells using an alanine transporter. Without this supply of alanine, the cancer cells were less able to grow and survive. Importantly, researchers saw that blocking this alanine transporter didn’t just weaken the cancer, it also gave the immune system’s T cells a better chance to attack the tumor.
In experiments with mice and lab models, blocking alanine uptake slowed tumor growth and made immunotherapies, such as anti-PD-L1 drugs and CAR T-cell therapy, work more effectively. These findings suggest that targeting the way ARID1A-mutant cancers import alanine could be a new treatment strategy.
By both starving the tumor of a key nutrient and boosting immune attack, this approach offers hope for developing more effective therapies against ovarian clear cell cancer, a disease that currently has limited options and poor outcomes.
Read more:
Selective Alanine Transporter Utilization is a Therapeutic Vulnerability in ARID1A-Mutant Ovarian Cancer, published in Cancer Research on September 15, 2025.
Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA) Support
OCRA Grantee Co-Authors include the following:
- Anil Sood, MD, MD Anderson Cancer Center and a member of OCRA’s Scientific Advisory Committee
- Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania and a former member of OCRA’s Scientific Advisory Committee
- Ernst Lengyel, MD, PhD, University of Chicago and a former member of OCRA’s Scientific Advisory Committee
- Rugang Zhang, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Shengqing Gu, MD, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Amir Jazaeri, MD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Hao Nie, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Chen Wang, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Shuai Wu, PhD
- Wei Zhou, PhD
