Project description:Comparisons among breast cancer metastases at different organs revealed distinct microenvironments as characterized by cytokine content. Such microenvironment distinction might be important to dictate how the cancer cells adapt to survival before they successfully colonize. This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series:; GSE14017: Metastases of breast cancer (U133plus2); GSE14018: Metastases of breast cancer (U133A) Experiment Overall Design: Refer to individual Series
Project description:Genome-wide DNA methylation profiling of brain metastases from lung cancer, breast cancer, and melanoma samples. The Illumina Infinium 450K Human DNA methylation Beadchip was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles across approximately 450,000 methylation sites in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples from brain metastases. Samples included 30 breast cancer brain metastases, 18 lung cancer brain metastases, 37 melanoma brain metastases, and 4 samples with brain metastases from patients with uncertain primary.
Project description:Bone is the primary site of breast cancer metastasis and complications associated with bone metastases can lead to a significantly decreased quality of life in these patients. Thus, it is essential to gain a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the emergence and growth of breast cancer skeletal metastases. Methods: To search for novel molecular mediators that influence breast cancer bone metastasis, we generated gene expression profiles from laser capture micro-dissected trephine biopsies of both breast cancer bone metastases and primary breast tumors that metastasized to bone. Bioinformatics analysis identified genes that are differentially expressed in breast cancer bone metastases compared to primary mammary tumors. Results: ABCC5, an ATP-dependent transporter, was found to be overexpressed in breast cancer osseous metastases relative to primary mammary tumors. In addition, ABCC5 was significantly up-regulated in human and mouse breast cancer cell lines with high bone-metastatic potential. Stable knockdown of ABCC5 significant reduced bone metastatic burden and osteolytic bone destruction in mice. The decrease in osteolysis was further associated with diminished osteoclast numbers. Conclusions: Our data, for the first time, suggests that ABCC5 functions as a mediator of breast cancer skeletal metastasis. ABCC5 expression in breast cancer cells is important for the efficient bone resorption mediated by osteoclasts. Hence, ABCC5 may be a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer bone metastasis. primary breast tumors vs. bone trephine biopsies
Project description:Breast cancer in young patients is known to exhibit more aggressive biological behavior and is associated with a less favorable prognosis than the same disease in older patients, owing in part to an increased incidence of brain metastases, the mechanistic explanations behind which remain poorly understood. We recently reported that young mice, compared to older mice, showed about a three-fold increase in the development of brain metastases in mouse models of triple-negative and luminal B breast cancer. Here we have performed a quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis to identify proteins contributing to age-related disparities in the development of breast cancer brain metastases. Using a mouse model of brain-tropic (MDA-MB-231BR) triple-negative breast cancer, we harvested subpopulations of tumor metastases, the tumor-adjacent metastatic microenvironment, and uninvolved brain tissues via laser microdissection followed by quantitative proteomic analysis using high resolution mass spectrometry to characterize differentially abundant proteins contributing to age-dependent rates of brain metastasis.
Project description:Lymph-node (LN) metastases predict for high recurrence rates in breast cancer patients. Eradication of micro-metastatic tumor cells is the primary goal of adjuvant systemic treatment. Decisions regarding systemic treatment depend largely on primary tumor characteristics rather than on characteristics of their LN metastases. However, it remains unclear to what extent LN metastases, having already metastasized locally, resemble their primary breast tumors and as such will be eradicated by the systemic therapy chosen. In this study we investigated the genetic differences between primary breast cancers and their paired LN metastases using array comparative genomic hybridization analyses on a high resolution 720K Nimblegen platform. Thus far, no metastasis-specific genomic aberrations have been identified. We hypothesized that this is due to low-resolution platforms and lack of stratification on breast cancer subtypes (specifically, triple-negative (TN) versus luminal). Furthermore, we speculated that as TN tumours are known to be more genetically unstable, their LN metastases would show an increase in random copy number aberrations (CNAs). Therefore, we studied 10 primary TN breast tumour–LN pairs and 10 luminal pairs and found that all LN metastases clustered nearest to their matched tumour except for two. These two were explained by poor hybridization quality and, interestingly, the presence of two histological components in one tumour. We found no significantly altered CNAs between pairs in the whole group, nor when subdivided over subtypes; neither did we find a CNA increase in LN metastases compared to primary tumours within the TN subgroup, suggesting most CNAs are functional and not random. Our findings suggest a strong clonal relationship between primary breast tumours and its LN metastases and support the use of the primary tumor characteristics to guide adjuvant systemic chemotherapy in breast cancer patients, since primary tumors and their subsequent LN metastases seem remarkably similar, at least prior to treatment.
Project description:Lymph-node (LN) metastases predict for high recurrence rates in breast cancer patients. Eradication of micro-metastatic tumor cells is the primary goal of adjuvant systemic treatment. Decisions regarding systemic treatment depend largely on primary tumor characteristics rather than on characteristics of their LN metastases. However, it remains unclear to what extent LN metastases, having already metastasized locally, resemble their primary breast tumors and as such will be eradicated by the systemic therapy chosen. In this study we investigated the genetic differences between primary breast cancers and their paired LN metastases using array comparative genomic hybridization analyses on a high resolution 720K Nimblegen platform. Thus far, no metastasis-specific genomic aberrations have been identified. We hypothesized that this is due to low-resolution platforms and lack of stratification on breast cancer subtypes (specifically, triple-negative (TN) versus luminal). Furthermore, we speculated that as TN tumours are known to be more genetically unstable, their LN metastases would show an increase in random copy number aberrations (CNAs). Therefore, we studied 10 primary TN breast tumour–LN pairs and 10 luminal pairs and found that all LN metastases clustered nearest to their matched tumour except for two. These two were explained by poor hybridization quality and, interestingly, the presence of two histological components in one tumour. We found no significantly altered CNAs between pairs in the whole group, nor when subdivided over subtypes; neither did we find a CNA increase in LN metastases compared to primary tumours within the TN subgroup, suggesting most CNAs are functional and not random. Our findings suggest a strong clonal relationship between primary breast tumours and its LN metastases and support the use of the primary tumor characteristics to guide adjuvant systemic chemotherapy in breast cancer patients, since primary tumors and their subsequent LN metastases seem remarkably similar, at least prior to treatment.
Project description:Bone is the primary site of breast cancer metastasis and complications associated with bone metastases can lead to a significantly decreased quality of life in these patients. Thus, it is essential to gain a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the emergence and growth of breast cancer skeletal metastases. Methods: To search for novel molecular mediators that influence breast cancer bone metastasis, we generated gene expression profiles from laser capture micro-dissected trephine biopsies of both breast cancer bone metastases and primary breast tumors that metastasized to bone. Bioinformatics analysis identified genes that are differentially expressed in breast cancer bone metastases compared to primary mammary tumors. Results: ABCC5, an ATP-dependent transporter, was found to be overexpressed in breast cancer osseous metastases relative to primary mammary tumors. In addition, ABCC5 was significantly up-regulated in human and mouse breast cancer cell lines with high bone-metastatic potential. Stable knockdown of ABCC5 significant reduced bone metastatic burden and osteolytic bone destruction in mice. The decrease in osteolysis was further associated with diminished osteoclast numbers. Conclusions: Our data, for the first time, suggests that ABCC5 functions as a mediator of breast cancer skeletal metastasis. ABCC5 expression in breast cancer cells is important for the efficient bone resorption mediated by osteoclasts. Hence, ABCC5 may be a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer bone metastasis.