# Racial disparity in triple-negative breast cancer lipid metabolism

> **NIH NIH P20** · CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FULLERTON · 2021 · $64,965

## Abstract

PROJECT TITLE
Racial disparity in triple-negative breast cancer lipid metabolism
PROJECT SUMMARY
Cancer incidence, progression, drug-resistance, and mortality vary significantly by race and ethnicity. Triple-
negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtype disproportionately affects African American (AA) women with high
mortality rate due to metastasis. Recently, altered lipid metabolism in the tumor was identified as a driver of
TNBC metastasis, providing a rational for our central hypothesis that there are gene expression and/or
genetic differences between AA and Caucasian White (CW) populations that cause lipid metabolism changes
underlying TNBC initiation and progression. At the P20 pilot stage of the grant we will address a focused
hypothesis that there are differences in lipid composition in normal breast tissue and cancer tissue between
AA and CW populations. At the cellular level, cancer cells can alter lipid content endogenously (via
metabolism) or exogenously (via lipid uptake from their microenvironment), yet knowledge about the
contribution of each pathway to lipid metabolism dysregulation is lacking. At the human population level,
several genome wide association studies identified associations with lipid metabolism alterations in breast and
other cancers, yet, the majority of these studies used patients of European origin. Thus, patient racial/ethnic
differences remain to be uncovered. At the P20 pilot stage of the grant, our objectives are 1) to set up the
pipeline for sample acquisition and analysis for normal breast tissue (NBT), tumor and normal adjacent tissue
(NAT) pairs, and 2) determine lipid composition differences and lipid metabolism gene expression changes in
paired NAT and cancer samples, as well as in AA vs. CW patient samples. These objectives will contribute to
the overarching goal (achieved at the R03 and R01 stages of this project): to determine the molecular
mechanism underlying lipid composition differences, which will enable us to probe causality between changes
in tumor lipid metabolism and cancer progression in AA and CW TNBC patient populations. Here we will
pursue two Aims feasible within 1 year: 1) Use lipidomic profiling to determine whether there are racial
differences in lipid composition of NBT and tumor/NAT paired TNBC samples from African American and
Caucasian White patients; and 2) Use transcriptomic profiling to determine whether there are racial differences
in lipid metabolism gene expression of NBT and tumor/NAT paired TNBC samples from African American and
Caucasian White patients. At the end of the P20 stage we will generate preliminary data showing that there
are differences in lipid composition between cancer and NAT as well as between AA and CW racial groups;
with the first step made towards establishing underlying transcriptional changes. This will provide premise for
an R03 application to link these lipid differences with cancer initiation and progression. Eventually, we will
transition to an R01 app...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10302805
- **Project number:** 1P20CA253251-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FULLERTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Nikolas Nikolaidis
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $64,965
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-22 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10302805

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10302805, Racial disparity in triple-negative breast cancer lipid metabolism (1P20CA253251-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10302805. Licensed CC0.

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