Nature Cell Biology, Published online: 07 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41556-026-02042-3 Chen, Xu, Zhou, Wu et al. report that a citric acid cycle enzyme OGDH regulates METTL3 succinylation and its activation as an m6A reader, thereby modulating NRF2 translation, disulfidptosis evasion and tumour growth.