Yue Chang,1 Rui Du,2 Fan Xia,1 Xiuli Xu,1 Hongzhi Wang,1 Xueran Chen1 

1Hefei Cancer Hospital of CAS; Institute of Health and Medical Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Anorectal Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei First People’s Hospital, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Xueran Chen; Hongzhi Wang, Email xueranchen@cmpt.ac.cn; wanghz@hfcas.ac.cn

Abstract: Breast cancer has become the number one cancer worldwide, there are challenges in its prevention, diagnosis and treatment, especially the pathogenesis of triple negative breast cancer has not been clear and the treatment dilemma of metastatic breast cancer. Metabolic reprogramming is currently considered to be one of the hallmarks of cancer, and metabolic alterations in breast cancer, including enhanced glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid cycle activity, glutamine catabolism, and fatty acid biosynthesis, are manifested differently in different breast cancer subtypes and have a complex relationship with tumor growth, metastasis, death, and drug resistance. At present, inhibitors of fatty acid synthesis and oxidation related enzymes have a certain effect in the treatment of breast cancer. In this paper, we review the studies on fatty acid metabolism in breast cancer to better understand the mechanism of fatty acid metabolism in breast cancer pathogenesis and hope to provide new ideas for targeting fatty acid metabolism in the treatment of breast cancer.

Keywords: breast cancer, fatty acid metabolism, metabolic reprogramming, targeted therapy