Role of Fatty Acid Metabolism in Estrogen Receptor-Negative Breast Cancer

摘要

The goal of this proposal was to determine whether there were differences in fatty acid activation between estrogen receptor positive (ER+) and receptor negative (ER-) breast cancer. As a result of support provided by this award, we have been able to expand this investigation to include other hormone receptor biomarkers, and have determined that expression of long-chain fatty acyl-CoA synthetase 4 (ACSL4) is negatively correlated with expression of ER, androgen receptor (AR), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), and in fact functions as a biomarker of quadruple negative breast cancer (QNBC). In addition, we have demonstrated that expression of ACSL4 is able to mediate estrogen resistance. We are currently assessing the utility of using ACSL4 as a biomarker in the prediction of hormone resistance.