Oleic acid (OA) further promotes the proliferation and migration abilities and upregulates lipogenic proteins in ALDH^high cells.

<p>(A) Quantitative real-time RT-PCR of ALDH1A1, ALDH1A2 and ALDH1A3 in MCF10DCIS.COM cells. All subtypes of ALDH1 were significantly increased by OA. Notably, OA led to a remarkable increase in ALDH1A2 in MCF10DCIS.COM cells. (B) MTT assay of cell proliferation in ALDH^high and ALDH^low cells incubated with OA. OA-induced proliferation of ALDH^high cells was greater than that of ALDH^low cells. (C) Trans-well assay of cell migration in ALDH^high and ALDH^low cells. The OA-induced migration ability was higher in ALDH^high cells than ALDH^low cells. (D) Representative Western blot of SREBP-1, FAS and ACC-1 in ALDH^high cells and ALDH^low cells. (E, F and G) Analysis of expression levels of SREBP-1, FAS and ACC-1. Significantly higher expression of SERBP-1 and ACC-1 was observed in ALDH^high cells, whereas FAS was significantly higher in ALDH^low cells. OA led to the significant upregulation of SREBP-1 and FAS in ALDH^high cells and the significant upregulation of SREBP-1 and downregulation of FAS in ALDH^low cells. All experiments were performed at least in triplicate, and the values are reported as the means ± standard error. *<i>p</i><0.05, **<i>p</i><0.01.