Tumor recurrence is now the leading cause of breast cancer-related death. These recurrences are believed to arise from residual cancer stem cells that survive initial therapeutic intervention. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of cancer stem cell biology is needed to generate more effective therapies. Here we investigate the association between dysregulation of lipid metabolism and breast cancer stem cells. Focusing specifically on lipid droplets, we found that the lipid droplet number correlates with stemness in a panel of breast cell lines. Using a flow cytometry-based method developed for this study, we establish a means to isolate cells with augmented lipid droplet loads from total populations and show that they are enriched in cancer stem cells. Furthermore, pharmacological targeting of fatty acid metabolism reveals a metabolic addiction in a subset of cell lines. Our results highlight a key role for the lipid metabolism in the maintenance of the breast cancer stem cell pool, and as such, suggest it as a potential therapeutic target.
African swine fever virus (ASFV), the causative agent of African Swine Fever (ASF), is an infectious disease of swine that is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality in naive populations. ASFV is challenging to work with in vitro and the in vivo immune response remains an active area of study. Vaccine development, pathogenesis, and diagnostic assay development studies often require use of live swine housed in high-containment laboratories. Studies of this type are intended to obtain key data yet must minimize the pain and distress experienced by the animals. To implement humane endpoints, pigs are ideally euthanatized by barbiturate overdose prior to death from ASFV infection, as the final stages of ASF can be clinically severe. However, due to the complex nature of ASFV pathogenesis, predicting when an infected animal will become moribund and require euthanasia is difficult. The current study was intended to aid in predicting the onset of moribundity in swine. Toward this end, we performed statistical analyses of historical health record data from 103 swine experimentally infected with ASFV. Regression analysis suggested that rectal temperature has potential utility as a marker for predicting moribundity, whereas viral strain and duration of survival after inoculation were significant risk factors for death due to disease rather than euthanasia.
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