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Omics · study · 2026

Gliomas phenocopy an inborn error of metabolism to drive neuronal activity and tumor growth

Listed in NCBI GEO

The metabolic hallmarks of high-grade glioma (HGG) are not fully understood.

Description

Human brain tissue metabolomics revealed that the creatine synthesis pathway intermediate guanidinoacetate (GAA) accumulated ~100-fold in HGGs relative to controls, which was caused by imbalanced activities of enzymes in this pathway. Glioma cells secreted GAA rather than using it to produce creatine, implicating an unexpected function.

GAA accumulates in GAMT Deficiency, an inborn error of metabolism, and elevates neuronal excitability. Neuronal excitability is also increased in glioma and drives tumor growth through neuron-glioma interactions. We hypothesized that glioma-generated GAA excites surrounding neurons.

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Indeed, GAA induced neuronal hyperactivity by activating GABAA receptors and causing depolarizing GABA currents in glioma-associated neurons with dysregulated chloride homeostasis. Depleting tumoral GAA decreased electrochemical activity, neuron-glioma interactions, and tumor aggressiveness. Our findings unveil a new mechanism linking cancer metabolism with cancer neuroscience and leverage human genetics to nominate GAA synthesis as a target in gliomas.

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Life Sciences
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Biochemistry and cell biology 69% · Cancer 75%
Provenance · 1 source records, 9 field assertions
SourceKeyLast seenRaw
NCBI GEOGSE34320710 d agoJSON v1
FieldAssertionExtractorEvidence
access_levelsource · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0
concepts[disease].local:disease:cancerenrichment · NCBI GEOkeyword-concept-rules@1.0.0title+description (75%)
concepts[field].anzsrc:group:3101enrichment · NCBI GEOtaxonomy-embedding@1.1.0title+keywords+description (69%)
concepts[field].local:field:life-sciencesmapping · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0
concepts[method].geo_series_type:genome-binding-occupancy-profiling-by-high-throughput-sequencingsource · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0/gdstype
concepts[organism].NCBITaxon:9606source · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0/taxon
descriptionsource · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0/summary
publication_datesource · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0
titlesource · NCBI GEOconnector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0/title