PHGDH and cancer: Significant increases in the expression of PHGDH are also characteristic of many advanced cancers and have been associated with heritable mutations (typically structural amplification) of the PHGDH gene (Mullarky et al. 2011) or loss-of-function mutations in upstream repressors of PHGDH expression (e.g. p53; Rathore et al. 2020).