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Breast Cancer Research
Published in: Breast Cancer Research 5/2006

Open Access 01-10-2006 | Research article

Gene expression signatures of morphologically normal breast tissue identify basal-like tumors

Authors: Greg Finak, Svetlana Sadekova, Francois Pepin, Michael Hallett, Sarkis Meterissian, Fawaz Halwani, Karim Khetani, Margarita Souleimanova, Brent Zabolotny, Atilla Omeroglu, Morag Park

Published in: Breast Cancer Research | Issue 5/2006

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Abstract

Introduction

The role of the cellular microenvironment in breast tumorigenesis has become an important research area. However, little is known about gene expression in histologically normal tissue adjacent to breast tumor, if this is influenced by the tumor, and how this compares with non-tumor-bearing breast tissue.

Methods

To address this, we have generated gene expression profiles of morphologically normal epithelial and stromal tissue, isolated using laser capture microdissection, from patients with breast cancer or undergoing breast reduction mammoplasty (n = 44).

Results

Based on this data, we determined that morphologically normal epithelium and stroma exhibited distinct expression profiles, but molecular signatures that distinguished breast reduction tissue from tumor-adjacent normal tissue were absent. Stroma isolated from morphologically normal ducts adjacent to tumor tissue contained two distinct expression profiles that correlated with stromal cellularity, and shared similarities with soft tissue tumors with favorable outcome. Adjacent normal epithelium and stroma from breast cancer patients showed no significant association between expression profiles and standard clinical characteristics, but did cluster ER/PR/HER2-negative breast cancers with basal-like subtype expression profiles with poor prognosis.

Conclusion

Our data reveal that morphologically normal tissue adjacent to breast carcinomas has not undergone significant gene expression changes when compared to breast reduction tissue, and provide an important gene expression dataset for comparative studies of tumor expression profiles.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Gene expression signatures of morphologically normal breast tissue identify basal-like tumors
Authors
Greg Finak
Svetlana Sadekova
Francois Pepin
Michael Hallett
Sarkis Meterissian
Fawaz Halwani
Karim Khetani
Margarita Souleimanova
Brent Zabolotny
Atilla Omeroglu
Morag Park
Publication date
01-10-2006
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Breast Cancer Research / Issue 5/2006
Electronic ISSN: 1465-542X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/bcr1608

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