Purpose: Excess visceral adiposity increases the risk of ovarian cancer. Intraperitoneal spread to omental adipose is a frequent event and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in women with ovarian cancer. We have recently described a population of tumor tropic adipose stem cells from omental adipose. We hypothesized that visceral obesity alters the visceral adipose population to enhance the initiation and progression of ovarian cancer.

Results: Intraperitoneally injected ID8 ovarian cancer cells grew significantly faster in mice with diet-induced obesity (p<0.05). To determine if the tumor promoting effects of obesity was due to ASC, ASC were isolated from omental (O-ASC) and subcutaneous adipose (SC-ASC) of mice with and without diet induced obesity. Both O-ASC and SC-ASC from Lean/obese mice expressed same mesenchymal cell surface markers. 106 mouse ovarian cancer cells ID8 were co-injected with equal number of different ASC isolates. ASC from all sources increased the cancer cell proliferation in vitro and increased ovarian cancer cell ID8 survival under the treatment of chemo drug Taxol at different concentrations. There were no significant differences in ASC isolates in migration towards tumor-conditioned media. Tumor growth was accelerated by ASCs, but O-ASC and SC-ASC derived from obese mice more potently promoted tumor progression and produced more ascites.

Conclusions: Obesity promotes ovarian tumor progression and this effect is mediated at least in part by adipose stem cells. We propose that obese derived ASCs, especially O-ASC express specific factors that enhance tumor progression, promoting survival and proliferation of tumor cells.

Citation Format: Yan Zhang, Travis Solley, Aleksandra Nowicka, Ann Klopp. Obesity promotes growth of ovarian cancer through adipose stem cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Ovarian Cancer Research: From Concept to Clinic; Sep 18-21, 2013; Miami, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2013;19(19 Suppl):Abstract nr A67.

©2013 American Association for Cancer Research.
2013