Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 11, 2026
Exploring the Regulation of Lipid Droplet Catabolism through Lipophagy
Published on: January 31, 2025
Fatty acid metabolites in rapidly proliferating breast cancer
Joseph T O'Flaherty1, Rhonda E Wooten, Michael P Samuel
1Department of Internal Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States of America.
Purpose:
Breast cancers that over-express a lipoxygenase or cyclooxygenase are associated with poor survival possibly because they overproduce metabolites that alter the cancer's malignant behaviors. However, these metabolites and behaviors have not been identified. We here identify which metabolites among those that stimulate breast cancer cell proliferation in vitro are associated with rapidly proliferating breast cancer.
Experimental Design:
We used selective ion monitoring-mass spectrometry to quantify in the cancer and normal breast tissue of 27 patients metabolites that stimulate (15-, 12-, 5-hydroxy-, and 5-oxo-eicosatetraenoate, 13-hydroxy-octadecaenoate [HODE]) or inhibit (prostaglandin [PG]E2 and D2) breast cancer cell proliferation. We then related their levels to each cancer's proliferation rate as defined by its Mib1 score.
Results:
13-HODE was the only metabolite strongly, significantly, and positively associated with Mib1 scores. It was similarly associated with aggressive grade and a key component of grade, mitosis, and also trended to be associated with lymph node metastasis. PGE2 and PGD2 trended to be negatively associated with these markers. No other metabolite in cancer and no metabolite in normal tissue had this profile of associations.
Conclusions:
Our data fit a model wherein the overproduction of 13-HODE by 15-lipoxygenase-1 shortens breast cancer survival by stimulating its cells to proliferate and possibly metastasize; no other oxygenase-metabolite pathway, including cyclooxygenase-PGE2/D2 pathways, uses this specific mechanism to shorten survival.
