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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Aug 6.
Published in final edited form as: Cancer Res. 2012 Jan 26;72(6):1416–1427. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-2558

Figure 6.

Figure 6

Schematic illustration of tumor/stroma interactions in K303R ERα breast cancer microenvironment. CAFs secrete leptin, which, acting in a paracrine fashion, binds to its cognate receptors (ObR), overexpressed on the surface of K303R ERα breast cancer cells and activates K303R ERα. This results in increased cell proliferation, motility, and invasion. K303R ERα-expressing cells, in turn, secrete factors that stimulate leptin production by adjacent CAFs, thus creating a positive feedback loop between cancer and stromal cells to further promote breast tumor progression.