Emerging approaches to target tumor metabolism

•Several tumor oncogenes and suppressors regulate cellular metabolism.•Targeting the metabolic pathways downstream of cancer genes may provide new therapeutic opportunities.•Describe progress in developing inhibitors to tumor-associated metabolic pathways.•Describe emerging targeting strategies for ‘undruggable’ targets.

Therapeutic exploitation of the next generation of drugs targeting the genetic basis of cancer will require an understanding of how cancer genes regulate tumor biology. Reprogramming of tumor metabolism has been linked with activation of oncogenes and inactivation of tumor suppressors. Well established and emerging cancer genes such as MYC, IDH1/2 and KEAP1 regulate tumor metabolism opening up opportunities to evaluate metabolic pathway inhibition as a therapeutic strategy in these tumors.