Correction: Porphyrin overdrive rewires cancer cell metabolism.

Cancer cells exhibit a metabolic phenotype termed “porphyrin overdrive,” characterized by dysregulated heme metabolic pathways for intermediate accumulation. This rewiring is cancer-essential and cancer-specific. Targeting this vulnerability with a “bait-and-kill” strategy shows promise in eradicating malignant cells.

Porphyrin overdrive rewires cancer cell metabolism.

All cancer cells reprogram metabolism to support aberrant growth. Here, we report that cancer cells employ and depend on imbalanced and dynamic heme metabolic pathways, to accumulate heme intermediates, that is, porphyrins. We coined this essential metabolic rewiring "porphyrin overdrive" and determined that it is cancer-essential and cancer-specific.