Selected Articles from This Issue

Obesity is an established risk factor for breast cancer recurrence, but the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. To study obesity-induced dormant mammary cancer cell outgrowth, Kulkoyluoglu Cotul and colleagues established a postmenopausal obesity mouse model wherein obesity was induced in ovariectomized mice via high fat diet consumption in thermoneutral temperatures. After dormant mammary cancer cell tail vein injections, the authors found that obesity increased dormant pulmonary mammary cancer cell outgrowth. A cytokine array using serum from obese mice revealed elevated fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) abundance, and exogenous FGF2 increased dormant mammary cancer cell growth in three-dimensional in vitro culture. Transcriptomic analysis identified FGFR1 as the most abundant FGF receptor in dormant mammary cancer cells, and pharmacologic FGFR1 inhibition and shRNA-mediated FGFR1 ablation suppressed obesity-driven dormant cell outgrowth in vivo. FGF2 transduction into dormant mammary cancer cells prior to tail vein injection also increased pulmonary outgrowth, indicating FGF2-induced dormant...