Many tumors lean on a back-door supply of DNA building blocks when they grow fast or come under attack. A new review argues that one enzyme controls that supply, and that blocking it could hit cancer cells while leaving most healthy ones alone.
Trethera Corporation, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced the peer-reviewed paper on July 16, 2026. It appeared in Nucleosides, Nucleotides & Nucleic Acids and goes through decades of research on the deoxyribonucleoside salvage pathway, with deoxycytidine kinase (dCK) as its rate-limiting enzyme. The company’s drug TRE-515 is described as the first dCK inhibitor to reach human clinical testing.
Why the enzyme matters
The authors say many tumors depend more and more on the salvage pathway to keep their pools of DNA precursors topped up during rapid growth, DNA damage and treatment stress. Normal tissues mostly build nucleotides from scratch instead. A drug that blocks dCK, then, is meant to exploit a weakness that may show up across several tumor types.
The review also collects evidence that particular genetic changes, including BRCA2 deficiency and mutant p53, make tumors rely more heavily on dCK. And it covers early preclinical work pairing dCK inhibition with DNA-damaging drugs and with radiation, which put cells under replication stress. That work suggests blocking the pathway could make standard treatments hit harder.
What the authors say
Dr. Peter M. Clark, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and first author, said the link between salvage and tumor survival is “very compelling but underappreciated relative to the historical focus on the de novo synthesis pathway.”
Dr. Ken Schultz, Trethera’s chief executive and a co-author, called it “a new frontier in precision cancer medicine.” Because the company makes TRE-515, readers should weigh that enthusiasm accordingly.
The announcement does not give clinical results for TRE-515. Anyone with cancer should talk with their doctor before drawing conclusions about a drug still in testing.
