Spotlight Lactate fuels mitosis

Cell cycle and metabolism are intimately intertwined, but how metabolites directly regulate cell-cycle ma-chinery remains elusive. Liu et al.1 reveal that glycolysis end-product lactate directly binds and inhibits the SUMO protease SENP1 to govern the E3 ligase activity of the anaphase-promoting complex, leading to effi-cient mitotic exit in proliferative cells.