LM, Weiss RH. The cpk model of recessive PKD shows glutamine dependence associated with the production of the oncometabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 309: F492-F498, 2015. First published July 8, 2015 doi:10.1152/ajprenal.00238.2015.-Since polycystic kidney disease (PKD) was first noted over 30 years ago to have neoplastic parallels, there has been a resurgent interest in elucidating neoplasia-relevant pathways in PKD. Taking a nontargeted metabolomics approach in the B6(Cg)-Cys1 cpk/ J (cpk) mouse model of recessive PKD, we have now characterized metabolic reprogramming in these tissues, leading to a glutamine-dependent TCA cycle shunt toward total 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) production in cpk compared with B6 wild-type kidney tissue. After confirmation of increased 2-HG expression in immortalized collecting duct cpk cells as well as in human autosomal recessive PKD tissue using targeted analysis, we show that the increase in 2-HG is likely due to glutamine-sourced ␣-ketoglutarate. In addition, cpk cells require exogenous glutamine for growth such that inhibition of glutaminase-1 decreases cell viability as well as proliferation. This study is a demonstration of the striking parallels between recessive PKD and cancer metabolism. Our data, once confirmed in other PKD models, suggest that future therapeutic approaches targeting this pathway, such as using glutaminase inhibitors, have the potential to open novel treatment options for renal cystic disease. ARPKD; glutamine; metabolomics; oncometabolite; reprogramming THE POLYCYSTIC KIDNEY DISEASES (PKD) are disorders characterized by, among other signaling events, dysregulated renal tubular epithelial (RTE) cell proliferation. While the concept that PKD is a "neoplasia in disguise" was initially suggested by Grantham in 1990 (9), it is becoming increasingly clear that the cystic renal diseases have marked biochemical similarities with many aspects of the malignant process (22). Consequently, PKD is now being investigated in the context of tumor metabolism with an eye toward discovery of new therapies and/or repurposing of currently approved or pipeline oncology drugs. Indeed, recent studies in our and other laboratories have shown connections between the cyclin-dependent kinases (1,17,18) and nuclear transport (26) inhibitors in PKD, as well as a striking parallel of metabolic reprogramming related to glycolysis and the Warburg effect, which was shown to occur in an autosomal dominant PKD model (21).Given the current emphasis on the metabolic changes associated with oncogenesis, and since we have successfully utilized metabolomics to discover biomarkers and altered metabolic pathways in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) (8, 30), we took a nontargeted metabolomics approach to compare cancer with autosomal recessive PKD (ARPKD) metabolic pathways. We evaluated the three "matrices" (kidney tissue, serum, and urine) in the B6(Cg)-Cys1 cpk/ J (cpk) mouse model of recessive PKD (10) and then validated the changes in human ARPKD tissue and unaffected contro...