Beyond bacteria: A fungal metabolite drives liver cancer from within.

Rhizopus arrhizus promotes MASLD-associated liver cancer via kynurenic acid, which bypasses its surface receptors to engage the cytoplasmic scaffold IQGAP1.

• Why it matters: Gut fungi are less understood than gut bacteria as drivers of steatotic liver disease and liver cancer, leaving a key mechanistic gap.
• What they did: Zhou et al. identify kynurenic acid as the fungal metabolite and show it acts through IQGAP1 rather than the metabolite’s own surface receptors.
• The result: The work links a specific gut fungus and metabolite to MASLD-associated liver cancer and suggests IQGAP1 as a mechanistic target.

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