Not Expecting the Unexpected: Diacylglycerol Kinase Alpha as a Cancer Target

In this issue of Cancer Discovery, Dominguez and colleagues identify diacylglycerol kinase alpha (DGK alpha), an enzyme that converts the membrane lipid diacylglycerol to phosphatidic acid, as a central node upstream of mTOR and other oncogenic pathways. Importantly, targeting DGKa causes apoptosis in cancer cells and tumor growth inhibition in mice with no overt toxicity, implicating DGKa as a novel cancer-specific target. (C) 2013 AACR.