Project description:Breast cancer risk continues to increase post menopause. Anti-estrogen therapies are available to prevent postmenopausal breast cancer in high-risk women. However, their adverse effects have reduced acceptability and overall success in cancer prevention. Natural products such as hops (Humulus lupulus) and three pharmacopeial licorice (Glycyrrhiza) species have demonstrated estrogenic and chemopreventive properties, but little is known regarding their effects on aromatase expression and activity as well as pro-proliferation pathways in human breast tissue. We show that Gycyrrhiza inflata (GI) has the highest aromatase inhibition potency among these plant extracts. Moreover, phytoestrogens such as liquiritigenin which is common in all licorice species have potent aromatase inhibitory activity, which is further supported by computational docking of their structures in the binding pocket of aromatase. In addition, GI extract and liquiritigenin suppress aromatase expression in the breast tissue of high-risk postmenopausal women. Although liquiritigenin has estrogenic effects in vitro, with preferential activity through estrogen receptor (ER)-β, it reduces estradiol-induced uterine growth in vivo. It downregulates RNA translation, protein biosynthesis, and metabolism in high-risk women’s breast tissue. Finally, it reduces the rate of MCF-7 cell proliferation, with repeated dosing. Collectively, these data suggest that liquiritigenin has breast cancer prevention potential for high-risk postmenopausal women. We then performed gene expression profiling analysis using data obtained from RNA-seq of 4 different cells at two time points.
Project description:Cancer prevention has a profound impact on cancer-associated mortality and morbidity. We previously identified TGFβ signaling as a candidate regulator of mammary epithelial cells associated with breast cancer risk. Here, we show that short-term TGFBR inhibitor (TGFBRi) treatment of peripubertal ACI inbred and Sprague Dawley outbred rats induces lasting changes and prevents estrogen- and carcinogen-induced mammary tumors, respectively. We identify TGFBRi-responsive cell populations by single cell RNA-sequencing, including a unique epithelial subpopulation designated secretory basal cells (SBCs) with progenitor features. We detect SBCs in normal human breast tissues and find them to be associated with breast cancer risk. Interactome analysis identifies SBCs as the most interactive cell population and the main source of insulin-IGF signaling. Accordingly, inhibition of TGFBR and IGF1R decrease proliferation of organoid cultures. Our results reveal a critical role for TGFβ in regulating mammary epithelial cells relevant to breast cancer and serve as a proof-of-principle cancer prevention strategy.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of invasive breast cancer events from the tamoxifen prevention trial validates low estrogen receptor mRNA level as the main determinant of tamoxifen resistance in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. In NSABP Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT), tamoxifen reduced the incidence of estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumors but not estrogen receptor negative breast cancer. More importantly, only 69% of estrogen receptor positive tumors were prevented by tamoxifen. The ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm provides an ideal clinical model for acquired tamoxifen resistance. Based on data from NSABP trial B14 which showed linear prediction of the degree of benefit from adjuvant tamoxifen by the levels of ESR1 mRNA coding for ER-alpha, we hypothesized a priori that level of ESR1 mRNA would be lower in ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm compared to those in placebo arm of BCPT. Keywords: Gene expression profiling analysis
Project description:Gene expression profiling of invasive breast cancer events from the tamoxifen prevention trial validates low estrogen receptor mRNA level as the main determinant of tamoxifen resistance in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. In NSABP Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT), tamoxifen reduced the incidence of estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumors but not estrogen receptor negative breast cancer. More importantly, only 69% of estrogen receptor positive tumors were prevented by tamoxifen. The ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm provides an ideal clinical model for acquired tamoxifen resistance. Based on data from NSABP trial B14 which showed linear prediction of the degree of benefit from adjuvant tamoxifen by the levels of ESR1 mRNA coding for ER-alpha, we hypothesized a priori that level of ESR1 mRNA would be lower in ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm compared to those in placebo arm of BCPT. Keywords: Gene expression profiling analysis Formalin fixed paraffin embedded tumor blocks with enough tumor tissue for RNA extraction were available from 108 cases (69 from placebo arm and 39 from tamoxifen arm) of the 264 that experienced invasive breast cancer (175 in placebo arm and 89 in tamoxifen arm) in BCPT before unblindings . Central ER immunohistochemistry identified 84 of them as ER positive (57 from placebo arm and 27 from tamoxifen arm). A novel protocol was developed and used to obtain microarray gene expression profiling from the degraded or fragmented RNA extracted from formalin fixed paraffin blocks.Hybridization intensity data were compiled using Partek Genomic Suite. After quantile normalization, genes with mean intensity below 500 were filtred out, which left 7743 probes with informative data. Data were log2 transformed for statistical analysis.