Utilizing a cytokine/chemokine array to screen the secretory factors and a phospho-kinase array to search for signaling pathways involved in the co-culture model, we found that CXCL5, a chemokine that can promote breast tumor growth and metastasis24–30, played an important role in relaying the effect of resistin-stimulated ADSCs on breast cancer cell malignancy with the participation of ERK pathway. Here, CXCL5 is linked to breast cancer.