Obesity and cancer are two major health challenges of our time, yet the link between them remains only partially understood. New research now highlights a molecular chain of events in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, revealing how leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells, signals cancer cells to grow. This leads to increased activity of the enzyme stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD), which fuels the growth and motility of cancer cells. The findings from a study in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, provides insights into the obesity\u2013breast cancer link and identifies potential new therapeutic targets to counter obesity-driven breast cancer progression.<\/p>\n
According to the World Obesity Federation’s 2025 Atlas, the global number of adults living with obesity is projected to reach 1.13 billion by 2030. Given the well-established epidemiological link between obesity and breast cancer, elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying this association has become a major research priority.<\/p>\n
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By integrating transcriptomic, lipidomic, and functional analyses, we uncovered a crucial role of the leptin-SCD axis in breast cancer biology. Our data indicate that the combined upregulation of leptin and SCD identifies a subgroup of breast cancers with poorer recurrence-free survival. This metabolic signature could serve as a prognostic marker, helping to stratify patients according to obesity-related metabolic risk.”<\/p>\n
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Ines Barone, PhD, lead investigator of the study\u00a0of the University of Calabria, Italy<\/p>\n
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The researchers found that blocking SCD activity abolished leptin-induced oncogenic traits, such as enhanced cell growth, motility, mitochondrial respiration, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecule production. Together, these findings provide a mechanistic explanation for how obesity can fuel hormone-responsive breast cancer progression.<\/p>\n
Dr. Barone concludes, “We were fascinated to see that selectively blocking SCD could almost completely counteract the pro-tumorigenic effects driven by leptin, revealing a striking vulnerability in this pathway. Our findings hold promise for patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, the most common subtype of breast cancer, as targeting SCD could limit disease progression in obese breast cancer patients.”<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Journal reference:<\/p>\n
Accattatis, F. M., et al. (2025). Interplay between Leptin and Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase 1 in Estrogen Receptor\u2013Positive Breast Cancer Cells.\u00a0The American Journal of Pathology.\u00a0 doi: 10.1016\/j.ajpath.2025.08.009.\u00a0https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0002944025003360?via%3Dihub<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Obesity and cancer are two major health challenges of our time, yet the link between them remains only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1239,258,12358,103,9385,61,60,77355,4369,3065,14530,89],"class_list":["post-132648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-breast-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-estrogen","tag-health","tag-hormone","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leptin","tag-obesity","tag-pathology","tag-receptor","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}