Copyright
©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Biol Chem. May 26, 2015; 6(2): 39-47
Published online May 26, 2015. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v6.i2.39
Published online May 26, 2015. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v6.i2.39
Adipocyte activation of cancer stem cell signaling in breast cancer
Benjamin Wolfson, Gabriel Eades, Qun Zhou, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
Author contributions: Wolfson B wrote the manuscript and generated the figure; Eades G reviewed the manuscript; Zhou Q designed the aim of the review and reviewed the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Qun Zhou, MD, PhD, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 22 S Greene St, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States. qzhou@som.umaryland.edu
Telephone: +1-410-7061615 Fax: +1-410-7068297
Received: January 27, 2015
Peer-review started: January 28, 2015
First decision: March 6, 2015
Revised: March 18, 2015
Accepted: April 16, 2015
Article in press: April 20, 2015
Published online: May 26, 2015
Peer-review started: January 28, 2015
First decision: March 6, 2015
Revised: March 18, 2015
Accepted: April 16, 2015
Article in press: April 20, 2015
Published online: May 26, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: We discuss the relationship between adipocytes in the microenvironment and breast cancer cells. We emphasize the role of adipocyte-secreted leptin and interleukin-6 in inducing breast cancer cell epithelial-mesenchymal transition and activating stemness pathways. Finally we summarize possible microenvironmental therapeutic targets and the potential role of non-coding RNAs in adipocyte-breast cancer interactions.