Activity-based protein profiling reveals GSTO1 as the covalent target of piperlongumine and a promising target for combination therapy for cancer.

Through systematic target identification for piperlongumine, a cancer-selective killing molecule, we identified GSTO1 as its major covalent target for cancer cell death induction. We also reveal that GSTO1 inhibition is a promising combination strategy with other anti-cancer agents by drug combination screening in which piperlongumine exhibits broad-spectrum synergistic effects with a large proportion of the tested anti-cancer agents, especially with PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway inhibitors.