ArticleBreast cancer research : BCR2017
Obesity reversibly depletes the basal cell population and enhances mammary epithelial cell estrogen receptor alpha expression and progenitor activity.
Article in Breast cancer research : BCR, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Exploring the Endocannabinoid System's Influence on Mammary Tissue and Breast Milk Inflammation in Maternal Chronic Obesity.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Development and characterisation of a novel 3D in vitro model of obesity-associated breast cancer as a tool for drug testing.NPJ breast cancer · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Alterations in the mammary gland and tumor microenvironment of formerly obese mice.BMC cancer · 2023Article
- The role of obesity and bariatric surgery-induced weight loss in breast cancer.Cancer metastasis reviews · 2022Review
- Bisphenol A replacement chemicals, BPF and BPS, induce protumorigenic changes in human mammary gland organoid morphology and proteome.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Identifying luminal and basal mammary cell specific genes and their expression patterns during pregnancy.PloS one · 2022Article
- Nutritional Regulation of Mammary Tumor Microenvironment.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Review
- Longitudinal Investigation of Pubertal Milestones and Hormones as a Function of Body Fat in Girls.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2021Article
- Obesity-Activated Lung Stromal Cells Promote Myeloid Lineage Cell Accumulation and Breast Cancer Metastasis.Cancers · 2021Article
- Single Cell RNA Sequencing of Human Milk-Derived Cells Reveals Sub-Populations of Mammary Epithelial Cells with Molecular Signatures of Progenitor and Mature States: a Novel, Non-invasive Framework for Investigating Human Lactation Physiology.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2020Article
- Targeting Obesity-Induced Macrophages during Preneoplastic Growth Promotes Mammary Epithelial Stem/Progenitor Activity, DNA Damage, and Tumor Formation.Cancer research · 2020Article
- Stromal CCL2 Signaling Promotes Mammary Tumor Fibrosis through Recruitment of Myeloid-Lineage Cells.Cancers · 2020Article
- A review on methods for diagnosis of breast cancer cells and tissues.Cell proliferation · 2020Review
- Obesity reduces mammary epithelial cell TGFβ1 activity through macrophage-mediated extracellular matrix remodeling.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2020Article
- Weighing the Risk: effects of Obesity on the Mammary Gland and Breast Cancer Risk.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2020Review
- Investigation of the adolescent female breast transcriptome and the impact of obesity.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2020Article
- Inter-Individual Variation in Response to Estrogen in Human Breast Explants.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundObesity is correlated with an increased risk for developing postmenopausal breast cancer. Since obesity rates continue to rise worldwide, it is important to understand how the obese microenvironment influences normal mammary tissue to increase breast cancer risk. We hypothesized that obesity increases the proportion of luminal progenitor cells, which are thought to be the cells of origin for the most common types of breast cancer, potentially leading to an increased risk for breast cancer.
methodsTo study the obese microenvironment within the mammary gland, we used a high-fat diet mouse model of obesity and human breast tissue from reduction mammoplasty surgery. We identified changes in breast epithelial cell populations using flow cytometry for cell surface markers, in vitro functional assays and expression of markers on breast tissue sections.
resultsIn both obese female mice and women, mammary epithelial cell populations demonstrated significant decreases in basal/myoepithelial cells, using either flow cytometry or cell-type-specific markers (SMA and p63). Estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) expression was significantly increased in luminal cells in obese mammary tissue, compared with control mice or breast tissue from lean women. Functional assays demonstrated significantly enhanced mammary epithelial progenitor activity in obese mammary epithelial cells and elevated numbers of ERα-positive epithelial cells that were co-labeled with markers of proliferation. Weight loss in a group of obese mice reversed increases in progenitor activity and ERα expression observed in obese mammary tissue.
conclusionsObesity enhances ERα-positive epithelial cells, reduces the number of basal/myoepithelial cells, and increases stem/progenitor activity within normal mammary tissue in both women and female mice. These changes in epithelial cell populations induced by obesity are reversible with weight loss. Our findings support further studies to examine how obesity-induced changes in stem/progenitor cells impact breast tumor incidence and histologic tumor types.
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