Nature Communications (Oct 2017)

The cholesterol metabolite 27 hydroxycholesterol facilitates breast cancer metastasis through its actions on immune cells

  • Amy E. Baek,
  • Yen-Rei A. Yu,
  • Sisi He,
  • Suzanne E. Wardell,
  • Ching-Yi Chang,
  • Sanghoon Kwon,
  • Ruchita V. Pillai,
  • Hannah B. McDowell,
  • J. Will Thompson,
  • Laura G. Dubois,
  • Patrick M. Sullivan,
  • Jongsook K. Kemper,
  • Michael D. Gunn,
  • Donald P. McDonnell,
  • Erik R. Nelson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00910-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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High cholesterol is a risk factor for breast cancer recurrence. Here the authors show that cholesterol promotes breast cancer metastasis via its metabolite 27-hydroxycholesterol (27HC) that acts on immune myeloid cells residing at the distal metastatic sites, thus promoting an immune suppressive environment.