Gene expression profiles of adipose tissue adjacent to and distant from breast cancer

It is widely recognized that cancer development and progression depend not only on tumor-cell intrinsic factors but also on its microenvironment and on the host characteristics. Adipocytes are the main stromal cells in the breast and an heterotypic interaction between breast epithelial cells and adipocytes has been demonstrated. To date, the alterations associated with adipocyte dedifferentiation has to be further studied, especially in patients. The aim of our work is to compare gene expression profile of adipose tissue adjacent to and distant from breast cancer in patients. Adipose tissues (AT) were collected during standard surgical approaches from 2015 to 2017 from 41 patients subjected to mastectomy. AT adjacent (within 2 cm from the reference tumor) to the tumor tissue and far from the tumor (preferentially more than 10 cm from the tumor and in general at the opposite site, peripherically) were obtained for each patient.