NDRG1 and neoplasm: Since lipid storage has been shown in a number of cell types to occur as a response to metabolic limitations of hypoxia [44] and glucose starvation [32, 53] and since our results showed that NDRG1 limits neutral lipid storage (Fig. 4), we tested whether NDRG1 expression protects breast cancer cells from conditions found in poorly perfused tumor microenvironments.