Project description:Breast cancer is a genetically and phenotypically complex disease. To understand the role of microRNAs in this molecular complexity, we performed miRNA expression analysis in a cohort of molecularly well-characterized human breast cancer (BC) cell lines to discover miRNAs associated with the most common molecular subtypes and the most frequent genetic aberrations.Using a microarray carrying LNA™ modified oligonucleotide capture probes (Exiqon), expression levels of 725 human miRNAs were measured in 51 BC cell lines. MiRNA expression was explored by unsupervised cluster analysis and then associated with the molecular subtypes and genetic aberrations commonly present in breast cancer. Unsupervised cluster analysis using the most variably expressed miRNAs divided the 51 BC cell lines into a major and a minor cluster predominantly mirroring the luminal and basal intrinsic subdivision of BC cell lines. One hundred and thirteen miRNAs were differentially expressed between these two main clusters of which half were related to the ER-status of the cell lines. Forty miRNAs were differentially expressed between basal-like and normal-like/claudin-low cell lines. Within the luminal-group of cell lines, 39 miRNAs were associated with ERBB2 overexpression and 24 miRNAs with E-cadherin gene mutations, which are frequent in this subtype of BC cell lines. In contrast, 31 different miRNAs were associated with E-cadherin promoter hypermethylation, which, contrary to E-cadherin mutation, is exclusively observed in BC cell lines that are not of luminal origin. The differential expression of 30 miRNAs were associated with p16INK4 status while only a few differentially expressed miRNAs were associated with BRCA1, or PIK3CA/PTEN, TP53 mutation status of the cell lines (P-value < 0.05). Twelve miRNAs were associated with DNA copy number variation of the respective locus. Luminal-basal and epithelial-mesenchymal associated miRNAs determine the overall subdivision of miRNA transcriptome of BC cell lines. Specific sets of miRNAs were associated with ERBB2 overexpression, p16INK4aor E-cadherin mutation or E-cadherin methylation status, which implies that these miRNAs may contribute to the driver role of the genetic aberrations. Additionally, miRNAs, which are located in a genomic region showing recurrent genetic aberrations, may themselves play a driver role in breast carcinogenesis or contribute to a driver gene in their vicinity. In short, our study provides detailed molecular miRNA portraits of BC cell lines, which can be exploited for functional studies of clinically important miRNAs. Affymetrix plus2PM arrays were hybridized according to the manufacturer's procedure using RNA extracted from 52 cultured breast cancer cell lines. Most cellines were analyzed in triplicate. Gene expression data in log2 scale arrays were calculated and associated with diverse characteristics. This submission represents the gene expression component of the study only

Project description:Breast cancer is a genetically and phenotypically complex disease. To understand the role of microRNAs in this molecular complexity, we performed miRNA expression analysis in a cohort of molecularly well-characterized human breast cancer (BC) cell lines to discover miRNAs associated with the most common molecular subtypes and the most frequent genetic aberrations.Using a microarray carrying LNA™ modified oligonucleotide capture probes (Exiqon), expression levels of 725 human miRNAs were measured in 51 BC cell lines. MiRNA expression was explored by unsupervised cluster analysis and then associated with the molecular subtypes and genetic aberrations commonly present in breast cancer. Unsupervised cluster analysis using the most variably expressed miRNAs divided the 51 BC cell lines into a major and a minor cluster predominantly mirroring the luminal and basal intrinsic subdivision of BC cell lines. One hundred and thirteen miRNAs were differentially expressed between these two main clusters of which half were related to the ER-status of the cell lines. Forty miRNAs were differentially expressed between basal-like and normal-like/claudin-low cell lines. Within the luminal-group of cell lines, 39 miRNAs were associated with ERBB2 overexpression and 24 miRNAs with E-cadherin gene mutations, which are frequent in this subtype of BC cell lines. In contrast, 31 different miRNAs were associated with E-cadherin promoter hypermethylation, which, contrary to E-cadherin mutation, is exclusively observed in BC cell lines that are not of luminal origin. The differential expression of 30 miRNAs were associated with p16INK4 status while only a few differentially expressed miRNAs were associated with BRCA1, or PIK3CA/PTEN, TP53 mutation status of the cell lines (P-value < 0.05). Twelve miRNAs were associated with DNA copy number variation of the respective locus. Luminal-basal and epithelial-mesenchymal associated miRNAs determine the overall subdivision of miRNA transcriptome of BC cell lines. Specific sets of miRNAs were associated with ERBB2 overexpression, p16INK4aor E-cadherin mutation or E-cadherin methylation status, which implies that these miRNAs may contribute to the driver role of the genetic aberrations. Additionally, miRNAs, which are located in a genomic region showing recurrent genetic aberrations, may themselves play a driver role in breast carcinogenesis or contribute to a driver gene in their vicinity. In short, our study provides detailed molecular miRNA portraits of BC cell lines, which can be exploited for functional studies of clinically important miRNAs.

Project description:About 25% of familial breast cancer (BC) is attributed to germline mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes while the rest of patients are included in the BRCAX group. BC also affects men with a worldwide incidence of 1%. The epigenetic alterations, including those DNA methylation, have been rarely studied in the male breast cancer (MBC) on a genome-wide level. The aim of the current work was to study the global DNA methylation profiles of BC patients to look for differences between familial female breast cancer (FBC) and MBC and according to BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX mutation status. The genomic DNA from FFPE tissues of 17 female and 7 male patients with BC was subjected to methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) and hybridized on human promoter microarrays. The comparison between FBC and MBC showed 2846 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) corresponding to 2486 distinct annotated genes. The gene ontology enrichment analysis revealdrelevant molecular function terms such as the GTPase superfamily genes (in particular the GTPase Rho GAP/GEF and GTPase RAB) and cellular component terms associated to cytoskeletal architecture such as “cytoskeletal part”, “keratin filament”, “intermediate filament". By considering only FBC, several cancer-associated pathways were the most enriched KEGG pathways of differentially methylated genes between BRCA2 and BRCAX or BRCA1+BRCAX groups. The comparison between BRCA1 group vs BRCA2+BRCAX group displayed the enriched molecular function term “cytoskeletal protein binding”. Finally, the functional annotation of differentially methylated genes between BRCAX and BRCA1+BRCA2 groups indicated that the most enriched molecular function terms were related to GTPase activity. In summary, this is the first study that compares the global DNA methylation profile of familial FBC and MBC and the results may provide useful insights into the epigenomic subtyping of breast cancer and shed light on a possible new molecular mechanisms underlying BC carcinogenesis.

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Phenotype-directed analysis of genotype in early-onset, familial breast cancers using arrayCGH

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