Iron-addicted colorectal cancers exploit heme-complex II axis to resist oxidative cell death
Chesta Jain, Muqit Essani, Roshan Kumar, Nupur K. Das, Rashi Singhal, Nicholas J. Rossiter, Brandon Chen, Wesley Huang, Zheng Hong Lee, Sumeet Solanki, Yuezhong Zhang, Peter Sajjakulnukit, Li Zhang, Prarthana J. Dalal, David A. Hanna, Cristina Castillo, Harrison S. Greenbaum, Shannon E. McCollum, El · 2026
Read Iron-addicted colorectal cancers exploit heme-complex II axis to resist oxidative cell death by Chesta Jain, Muqit Essani, Roshan Kumar, Nupur K. Das, Rashi Singhal, Nicholas J. Rossiter, Brandon Chen, Wesley Huang, Zheng Hong Lee, Sumeet Solanki, Yuezhong Zhang, Peter Sajjakulnukit, Li Zhang, Prarthana J. Dalal, David A. Hanna, Cristina Castillo, Harrison S. Greenbaum, Shannon E. McCollum, El (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13401815.txt.
Description
Chesta Jain and colleagues uncovered how iron-addicted colorectal cancers survive the very iron that should kill them. Their 2026 study asks how tumor cells tolerate high iron, which fuels growth yet can trigger ferroptosis, an iron-dependent cell death. Most ferroptosis regulators came from chemical screens, leaving their real role in living tumors uncertain.
Using multi-omics, CRISPR screening, and animal models, the team found a heme-succinate dehydrogenase-coenzyme Q axis that buffers iron-driven oxidative stress. Heme-dependent enzyme activity reduces coenzyme Q, which moves to mitochondrial and plasma membranes and traps lipid radicals. The paper reveals that colorectal cancers co-opt metabolic cofactors for both growth and survival under toxic iron, exposing a vulnerability that future drugs might exploit.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Chesta Jain, Muqit Essani, Roshan Kumar, Nupur K. Das, Rashi Singhal, Nicholas J. Rossiter, Brandon Chen, Wesley Huang, Zheng Hong Lee, Sumeet Solanki, Yuezhong Zhang, Peter Sajjakulnukit, Li Zhang, Prarthana J. Dalal, David A. Hanna, Cristina Castillo, Harrison S. Greenbaum, Shannon E. McCollum, El |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 69 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |