Obesity is associated with chronic, low-grade systemic inflammation and leads to changes in the immune microenvironment of various tissues. As a result, obesity is associated with increased risk of cancer and a worse prognosis in patients. Given the prevalence of obesity worldwide, understanding the fundamental biology governing the relationship between obesity and cancer is critical. In this chapter, we describe preclinical models of obesity that can be combined with standard tumor models and techniques to study the tumor-immune microenvironment. We also discuss important considerations when planning experiments involving these models.
Keywords: Animal models; Cancer immunology; Flow cytometry; Immune microenvironment; Inflammation; Obesity; Tumor microenvironment.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.