Histologically normal epithelium from breast cancer patients and cancer-free prophylactic mastectomy patients
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ABSTRACT: Gene expression in histologically normal epithelium from breast cancer patients and cancer-free prophylactic mastectomy patients share a similar profile Introduction: We hypothesized that gene expression in histologically normal epithelium (NlEpi) would differ in breast cancer patients (HN) compared to usual-risk controls undergoing reduction mammoplasty (RM), and that gene expression in NlEpi from cancer-free prophylactic mastectomies from high-risk women (PM), would resemble HN gene expression. Methods: We analyzed gene expression in 73 NlEpi samples microdissected from frozen tissue. In 42 cases, we used Affymetrix HU133A microarrays to compare gene expression in 18 RM vs 18 age-matched HN (9 ER+, 9 ER-) and 6 PM. Data were validated with qPCR in 31 independent NlEpi samples (8 RM, 17 HN, 6 PM). Results: 98 probesets (86 genes) were differentially expressed between RM and HN samples. Perfoming supervised hierarchical analysis with these 98 probesets, PM and HN samples clustered together, away from RM samples. qPCR validation of independent samples was high (84%) and uniform in RM vs HN, and lower (58%), but more heterogeneous, in RM vs PM. The 86 genes were implicated in many processes including transcription and the MAPK pathway. Conclusion: Gene expression differs between NlEpi of cancer cases and controls. The cancer cases' profile can be discerned in high-risk NlEpi. This suggests that the profile is not an effect of the tumor, but may mark increased risk and reveal breast cancer's earliest genomic changes. We determined that 98 probesets significantly differed between reduction mammoplasty and histologically normal epithelium from breast cancer patients. We also found that the histologically normal epithelium from prophylactic mastectomy patients' gene expression was more similar to histologically normal epithelium from breast cancer patients' than to reduction mammoplasty patients' gene expression. These results demonstrate that gene expression differs between NlEpi of cancer cases and controls. The cancer cases’ profile can be discerned in high-risk NlEpi. This suggests that the profile is not an effect of the tumor, but may mark increased risk and reveal breast cancer's earliest genomic changes.
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
PROVIDER: GSE20437 | GEO | 2010/06/01
SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA125611
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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