A combined enteric neuron-gastric tumor organoid reveals metabolic vulnerabilities in gastric cancer

Abstract

The discrepancy between organoid and immortalized cell line cultures for cancer target discovery remains unclear. Here, our multi-tiered clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) screens reveal in vivo-relevant metabolic dependencies and synthetic lethal pairs that can be uncovered with tumor organoids but not cell lines or even three-dimensional (3D) spheroids. These screens identify lanosterol synthase and acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA) carboxylase inhibitors as effective treatments that impede xenografted tumor growth in mice. These lipid metabolic inhibitors exhibit nanomolar half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) values across diverse human gastric cancer organoids resistant to first-line treatments. Mechanistically, gastric cancer organoids and in vivo tumors exhibit lipid metabolic adaptations not seen in two-dimensional (2D) in vitro cultures. Additionally, enteric neurons modulate lipid metabolism in tumor organoids, altering drug sensitivity by up to two orders of magnitude. A neuron-cocultured CRISPR screen further reveals that acetyl-CoA carboxylase expression determines lanosterol synthase inhibitor efficacy. These findings highlight the critical roles of organoid environment and neuronal interaction in cancer lipid reliance.