Transcriptional deregulation in subcutaneous adipose tissue from severely obese patients is associated with cancer: focus on gender differences and role of type 2 diabetes

Obesity is a major risk factor for a high number of secondary diseases, including cancer. Specific insights into the role of gender differences and secondary co-morbidities, such as type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cancer risk, are yet to be fully obtained. The aim of this study is thus to find a correlation between the transcriptional deregulation present in the subcutaneous adipose tissue of obese patients and the risk of cancer, in the presence of T2D, and considering gender differences. Through deep RNA-sequencing we highlighted the presence of both coding and non-coding deregulated RNAs, and we subsequently assessed their oncogenic risk. We correlated the oncogenes with anthropometrical parameters, highlighting significant trends. For each analysed condition we assessed the oncogenic pathways deregulated, the specific prognosis for different cancer types and the lncRNAs involvement in oncogenic networks and tissues. Our results provided a comprehensive characterization of oncogenesis correlation in subcutaneous adipose tissue, providing specific insights into the oncogenic prognosis for obese, diabetic or gender-specific differences. These results could shed light on new molecular targets to be specifically modulated in obesity and highlight which cancers should be most looked out for a better prevention in obesity affected patients. Overall design: Biopsies of SAT collected from a total of 20 subjects: 5 healthy normal weight women (CTRL, age 37 ± 6.7 years, BMI 24.3 ± 0.9 kg/m2), 5 obese women (OBF, age 41 ± 12.5 years, BMI 38.2 ± 4.6 kg/m2), 5 obese women with T2D (OBT2D; age 54.6 ± 14.9 years, BMI 38.1 ± 11.8 kg/m2) and 5 obese men (OBM, age 42.4 ± 6.58 years, BMI 36.9 ± 3.5 kg/m2)