The dietary c9,t11-conjugated linoleic acid enriched from butter reduces breast cancer progression in vivo.

The c9,t11-conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is the minor polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) naturally present in butter, has gained attention due to its important preventive effect against breast cancer in vitro. In this paper, the enrichment of c9,t11-CLA from butter was optimized and the preventive effect of dietary c9,t11-CLA against breast cancer in vivo was investigated. Results showed that the concentration of c9,t11-CLA increased more than 10 times via a one-step urea complexation. Furthermore, the dietary c9,t11-CLA showed obvious preventive effect against breast cancer in decreasing the tumor weight and volume, and reducing the tumor incidence up to 50%. In addition, the expression of progesterone receptor and Ki-67 decreased significantly with the treatment of c9,t11-CLA. In conclusion, the dietary c9,t11-CLA enriched from butter showed a preventive effect against breast cancer in vivo via the inhibition of the hormonal receptor and cell proliferation. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: This paper provided new insight into the preparation of specific c9,t11-CLA isomer. It can be enriched from butter in large-scale with low-cost by urea complexation. Meanwhile, the enriched dietary c9,t11-CLA can be further processed into cancer prevention functional foods.