Functional Genomics Reveals Synthetic Lethality between Phosphogluconate Dehydrogenase and Oxidative Phosphorylation.

Summary The plasticity of a preexisting regulatory circuitcompromises the effectiveness of targeted therapies, and leveraging genetic vulnerabilities in cancer cells may overcome such adaptations. Hereditary leiomyomatosisrenal cell carcinoma (HLRCC) is characterized by oxidative phosphorylation(OXPHOS) deficiency caused by fumarate hydratase (FH) nullizyogosity. To identify metabolic genes that are synthetically lethalwith OXPHOS deficiency, we conducted a genetic loss-of-function screen and found that phosphogluconate dehydrogenase(PGD) inhibition robustly blocks the proliferation of FH mutant cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo . Mechanistically, PGD inhibition blocks glycolysis, suppresses reductive carboxylation of glutamine, and increases the NADP + /NADPH ratio to disrupt redox homeostasis. Furthermore, in the OXPHOS-proficient context, blocking OXPHOS using the small-molecule inhibitor IACS-010759 enhances sensitivity to PGD inhibition in vitro and in vivo . Together, our study reveals a dependency on PGD in OXPHOS-deficient tumors that might inform therapeutic intervention in specific patient populations.