Diet-induced obesity and mammary tumor development in MMTV-neu female mice

Obesity is a risk factor for postmenopausal breast cancer and is associated with shortened latency and/or increased mammary tumor (MT) incidence in animals. Elevated body weight is usually associated with hormone-responsive tumors. In agreement with these data we previously showed that latency of hormone-responsive MTs in MMTV-TGF-α mice with diet-induced obesity was significantly shortened. Here, we used the same protocol to determine the impact of diet-induced obesity on estrogen receptor-negative MT development in MMTV-neu (strain 202) mice. Mice were fed a low-fat diet (n = 20) or a high-fat diet (n = 54) from 10 wk of age. Body weight at 19 wk of age was used to assign high-fat mice to obesity-prone, overweight, and obesity-resistant groups. Mice were euthanized due to MT size or at 85 wk of age. Final body weights of obesity-prone mice were heaviest, and those of obesity-resistant and low-fat groups were similar. Fat pad weights were heaviest in obesity-prone mice followed by overweight and obesity-resistant groups, and lightest in low-fat mice. Serum IGF-1 levels were similar for low-fat and high-fat mice, whereas leptin was higher in high-fat mice (P < 0.0001). MT latency, incidence, metastasis, and burden were similar for all groups. These findings support that obesity is not a risk factor for development of estrogen-negative breast cancer.