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https://doi.org/10.53941/jiim.2025.100002
Son, D.-S., Ignacio, R. M. C., Son, J., Lee, E.-S., & Adunyah, S. E. Proinflammatory Effects of Obesity in the Progression of Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Journal of Inflammatory and Infectious Medicine. 2025, 1(1), 2. doi: https://doi.org/10.53941/jiim.2025.100002
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 by the authors.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Article

Proinflammatory Effects of Obesity in the Progression of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Deok-Soo Son 1,*, Rosa Mistica C. Ignacio 1, Jubin Son 2, Eun-Sook Lee 3 and Samuel E. Adunyah 1

1 Department of Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Neuroscience and Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN 37208, USA

2 Neuroscience Program, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA

3 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL 32301, USA

* Correspondence: dson@mmc.edu

Received: 21 August 2024; Revised: 28 October 2024; Accepted: 2 December 2024; Published: 14 February 2025

Abstract: Obesity induces chronic inflammation and is associated with one-fifth of cancer deaths. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) has a higher death rate and increased proinflammatory chemokines compared to other breast cancer subtypes. Obesity leads to reduced overall survival in patients with TNBC. Here, we investigated if obesity-induced inflammation is involved in the progression of TNBC using cell line and animal models. Adipocyte-conditioned media (CM) increased cell viability, migration, and proinflammatory chemokines in mouse PY8119 TNBC cells, which reflect well human mesenchymal-like TNBC cells, compared to preadipocyte-CM. The ob/ob mice enhanced the progression of PY8119 cells by increasing the intensity of bioluminescence imaging, tumor volume and weight, and proinflammatory chemokines, compared to the wild-type mice. Furthermore, the immune contexture showed the higher levels of macrophage and CD4 cells in tumors of obese mice. Taken together, obesity may accelerate the progression of TNBC, revealing increased proinflammatory chemokines and altered immune contexture in the tumor microenvironment.

Keywords:

triple negative breast cancer obesity adipocytes chemokines

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