ASNS and cancer: Arginine starvation causes cell death of cancer cells targeting mitochondrial function, as supported by three lines of evidence: arginine starvation modulates mitochondrial electron transport chain gene expression; arginine induces ATF4-ASNS, thus diverting cellular aspartate toward increased asparagine and suppresses the aspartate-malate shuttle; mitochondria deficient cancer cells are resistant to the effect of arginine starvation [244].