Glutamine is an important source of nitrogen for amino acid and protein synthesis as well as de novo synthesis of nucleotides in cancer cells.47,50 The concentrations of glutamine, along with alanine and ornithine, were lower in tumours harvested from BCATmKO mice implying that the global deletion of BCATm had a negative impact on the non-essential amino acid synthesis in BCATmKO mice. Here, BCAT2 is linked to cancer.