Not expecting the unexpected: Diacylglycerol kinase alpha as a cancer target

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