ArticleCell death & disease2017
Adipocytes activate mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation and autophagy to promote tumor growth in colon cancer.
Article in Cell death & disease, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 192 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
192 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 280 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of lipid metabolic reprogramming in tumor microenvironment.Theranostics · 2023Pooled it
- CPT1A-mediated IDO1 succinylation shapes EGFRvIII-driven resistance to tumor electric field therapy in glioblastoma.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Cancer-associated adipocytes: metabolic reprogramming, crosstalk and therapeutic implications in tumor progression.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- The interplay between lipid metabolism, cancer progression and anti-cancer immunity.Experimental & molecular medicine · 2026Review
- Fatty Acid Metabolism and Hypoxia in the Tumor Microenvironment: Metabolic Adaptation and Clinical Potential in Colorectal Cancer.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- From Leaky Gut to a Vulnerable Brain: Obesity-Associated Gut Barrier Failure in Colorectal Cancer and Cognitive Dysfunction.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Obesity-induced oleic acid metabolic dysregulation may exacerbate osteoarthritis through the degradation of SOX9.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2026Article
- Adipocytes as Orchestrators of Multimodal Cancer Therapy Resistance.Biomolecules & therapeutics · 2026Review
- Tumor Organoid and Microenvironment Cocultures: Implications for Basic and Translational Cancer Research.MedComm · 2026Review
- Metabolic permissiveness: how tissue context shapes cancer.Genes & development · 2026Review
- White-to-brown adipose switching promotes bladder cancer progression.Neoplasia (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- The impact of lipid metabolism remodeling in the tumor microenvironment on angiogenesis.Discover oncology · 2026Review
- Article
- Obesity-induced metabolic reprogramming of the tumor immune microenvironment: mechanisms, spatial niches, and immunotherapy response.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- The Role of Mitochondrial ROS in Neoplastic Transformations, Progression and Therapeutic Targeting.Oncology research · 2026Review
- Alpha-linolenic acid in cancer: a predictive fate-switch framework for tumor lipid reprogramming.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Surgery-Induced Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Promote Tumor Metastasis by Reprogramming Cancer Cell Lipid Metabolism.Cancer research · 2025Article
- EPDR1 promotes gastric cancer progression via STAT3-mediated fatty acid metabolic reprogramming.European journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Dedifferentiation and metabolic reprogramming of human adipocytes in the tumor niche triggered by colorectal cancer cells.Biological research · 2025Article
- Vegetable Oil as a Carbon Resource and Growth Elicitor for the Liquid Fermentation ofJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
132 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Obesity has been associated with increased incidence and mortality of a wide variety of human cancers including colorectal cancer. However, the molecular mechanism by which adipocytes regulate the metabolism of colon cancer cells remains elusive. In this study, we showed that adipocytes isolated from adipose tissues of colon cancer patients have an important role in modulating cellular metabolism to support tumor growth and survival. Abundant adipocytes were found in close association with invasive tumor cells in colon cancer patients. Co-culture of adipocytes with colon cancer cells led to a transfer of free fatty acids that released from the adipocytes to the cancer cells. Uptake of fatty acids allowed the cancer cells to survive nutrient deprivation conditions by upregulating mitochondrial fatty acid β-oxidation. Mechanistically, co-culture of adipocytes or treating cells with fatty acids induced autophagy in colon cancer cells as a result of AMPK activation. Inhibition of autophagy attenuated the ability of cancer cells to utilize fatty acids and blocked the growth-promoting effect of adipocytes. In addition, we found that adipocytes stimulated the expression of genes associated with cancer stem cells and downregulated genes associated with intestinal epithelial cell differentiation in primary colon cancer cells and mouse tumor organoids. Importantly, the presence of adipocytes promoted the growth of xenograft tumors in vivo. Taken together, our results show that adipocytes in the tumor microenvironment serve as an energy provider and a metabolic regulator to promote the growth and survival of colon cancer cells.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.