| 1. |
- Aine, Mattias, et al.
(författare)
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Molecular analyses of triple-negative breast cancer in the young and elderly
- 2021
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Ingår i: Breast cancer research : BCR. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 23:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Breast cancer in young adults has been implicated with a worse outcome. Analyses of genomic traits associated with age have been heterogenous, likely because of an incomplete accounting for underlying molecular subtypes. We aimed to resolve whether triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in younger versus older patients represent similar or different molecular diseases in the context of genetic and transcriptional subtypes and immune cell infiltration.PATIENTS AND METHODS: In total, 237 patients from a reported population-based south Swedish TNBC cohort profiled by RNA sequencing and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) were included. Patients were binned in 10-year intervals. Complimentary PD-L1 and CD20 immunohistochemistry and estimation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were performed. Cases were analyzed for differences in patient outcome, genomic, transcriptional, and immune landscape features versus age at diagnosis. Additionally, 560 public WGS breast cancer profiles were used for validation.RESULTS: Median age at diagnosis was 62 years (range 26-91). Age was not associated with invasive disease-free survival or overall survival after adjuvant chemotherapy. Among the BRCA1-deficient cases (82/237), 90% were diagnosed before the age of 70 and were predominantly of the basal-like subtype. In the full TNBC cohort, reported associations of patient age with changes in Ki67 expression, PIK3CA mutations, and a luminal androgen receptor subtype were confirmed. Within DNA repair deficiency or gene expression defined molecular subgroups, age-related alterations in, e.g., overall gene expression, immune cell marker gene expression, genetic mutational and rearrangement signatures, amount of copy number alterations, and tumor mutational burden did, however, not appear distinct. Similar non-significant associations for genetic alterations with age were obtained for other breast cancer subgroups in public WGS data. Consistent with age-related immunosenescence, TIL counts decreased linearly with patient age across different genetic TNBC subtypes.CONCLUSIONS: Age-related alterations in TNBC, as well as breast cancer in general, need to be viewed in the context of underlying genomic phenotypes. Based on this notion, age at diagnosis alone does not appear to provide an additional layer of biological complexity above that of proposed genetic and transcriptional phenotypes of TNBC. Consequently, treatment decisions should be less influenced by age and more driven by tumor biology.
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| 2. |
- Arason, Adalgeir, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide search for breast cancer linkage in large Icelandic non-BRCA1/2 families
- 2010
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 12:4, s. R50-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Chromosomes 2p, 6q and 14q are candidate sites for genes contributing together to high breast cancer risk. A polygenic model is supported, suggesting the joint effect of genes in contributing to breast cancer risk to be rather common in non-BRCA1/2 families. For genetic counselling it would seem important to resolve the mode of genetic interaction.
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| 3. |
- Fredlund, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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The gene expression landscape of breast cancer is shaped by tumor protein p53 status and epithelial-mesenchymal transition
- 2012
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 14:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Gene expression data derived from clinical cancer specimens provide an opportunity to characterize cancer-specific transcriptional programs. Here, we present an analysis delineating a correlation-based gene expression landscape of breast cancer that identifies modules with strong associations to breast cancer-specific and general tumor biology. Methods: Modules of highly connected genes were extracted from a gene co-expression network that was constructed based on Pearson correlation, and module activities were then calculated using a pathway activity score. Functional annotations of modules were experimentally validated with an siRNA cell spot microarray system using the KPL-4 breast cancer cell line, and by using gene expression data from functional studies. Modules were derived using gene expression data representing 1,608 breast cancer samples and validated in data sets representing 971 independent breast cancer samples as well as 1,231 samples from other cancer forms. Results: The initial co-expression network analysis resulted in the characterization of eight tightly regulated gene modules. Cell cycle genes were divided into two transcriptional programs, and experimental validation using an siRNA screen showed different functional roles for these programs during proliferation. The division of the two programs was found to act as a marker for tumor protein p53 (TP53) gene status in luminal breast cancer, with the two programs being separated only in luminal tumors with functional p53 (encoded by TP53). Moreover, a module containing fibroblast and stroma-related genes was highly expressed in fibroblasts, but was also up-regulated by overexpression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition factors such as transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-beta1) and Snail in immortalized human mammary epithelial cells. Strikingly, the stroma transcriptional program related to less malignant tumors for luminal disease and aggressive lymph node positive disease among basal-like tumors. Conclusions: We have derived a robust gene expression landscape of breast cancer that reflects known subtypes as well as heterogeneity within these subtypes. By applying the modules to TP53-mutated samples we shed light on the biological consequences of non-functional p53 in otherwise low-proliferating luminal breast cancer. Furthermore, as in the case of the stroma module, we show that the biological and clinical interpretation of a set of co-regulated genes is subtype-dependent.
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| 4. |
- Gruvberger, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
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Expression profiling to predict outcome in breast cancer: the influence of sample selection
- 2003
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 5:1, s. 23-26
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gene expression profiling of tumors using DNA microarrays is a promising method for predicting prognosis and treatment response in cancer patients. It was recently reported that expression profiles of sporadic breast cancers could be used to predict disease recurrence better than currently available clinical and histopathological prognostic factors. Having observed an overlap in those data between the genes that predict outcome and those that predict estrogen receptor- status, we examined their predictive power in an independent data set. We conclude that it may be important to define prognostic expression profiles separately for estrogen receptor--positive and estrogen receptor--negative tumors.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Holm, Karolina, et al.
(författare)
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Molecular subtypes of breast cancer are associated with characteristic DNA methylation patterns
- 2010
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 12:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Five different molecular subtypes of breast cancer have been identified through gene expression profiling. Each subtype has a characteristic expression pattern suggested to partly depend on cellular origin. We aimed to investigate whether the molecular subtypes also display distinct methylation profiles. Methods: We analysed methylation status of 807 cancer-related genes in 189 fresh frozen primary breast tumours and four normal breast tissue samples using an array-based methylation assay. Results: Unsupervised analysis revealed three groups of breast cancer with characteristic methylation patterns. The three groups were associated with the luminal A, luminal B and basal-like molecular subtypes of breast cancer, respectively, whereas cancers of the HER2-enriched and normal-like subtypes were distributed among the three groups. The methylation frequencies were significantly different between subtypes, with luminal B and basal-like tumours being most and least frequently methylated, respectively. Moreover, targets of the polycomb repressor complex in breast cancer and embryonic stem cells were more methylated in luminal B tumours than in other tumours. BRCA2-mutated tumours had a particularly high degree of methylation. Finally, by utilizing gene expression data, we observed that a large fraction of genes reported as having subtype-specific expression patterns might be regulated through methylation. Conclusions: We have found that breast cancers of the basal-like, luminal A and luminal B molecular subtypes harbour specific methylation profiles. Our results suggest that methylation may play an important role in the development of breast cancers.
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| 7. |
- Honeth, Gabriella, et al.
(författare)
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The CD44(+)/CD24(-) phenotype is enriched in basal-like breast tumors
- 2008
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 10:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction Human breast tumors are heterogeneous and consist of phenotypically diverse cells. Breast cancer cells with a CD44(+)/CD24(-) phenotype have been suggested to have tumor-initiating properties with stem cell-like and invasive features, although it is unclear whether their presence within a tumor has clinical implications. There is also a large heterogeneity between tumors, illustrated by reproducible stratification into various subtypes based on gene expression profiles or histopathological features. We have explored the prevalence of cells with different CD44/CD24 phenotypes within breast cancer subtypes. Methods Double-staining immunohistochemistry was used to quantify CD44 and CD24 expression in 240 human breast tumors for which information on other tumor markers and clinical characteristics was available. Gene expression data were also accessible for a cohort of the material. Results A considerable heterogeneity in CD44 and CD24 expression was seen both between and within tumors. A complete lack of both proteins was evident in 35% of the tumors, while 13% contained cells of more than one of the CD44(+)/CD24(-), CD44(-)/CD24(+) and CD44(+)/CD24(+) phenotypes. CD44(+)/CD24(-) cells were detected in 31% of the tumors, ranging in proportion from only a few to close to 100% of tumor cells. The CD44(+)/CD24(-) phenotype was most common in the basal-like subgroup-characterized as negative for the estrogen and progesterone receptors as well as for HER2, and as positive for cytokeratin 5/14 and/or epidermal growth factor receptor, and particularly common in BRCA1 hereditary tumors, of which 94% contained CD44(+)/CD24(-) cells. The CD44(+)/CD24(-) phenotype was surprisingly scarce in HER2+ tumors, which had a predominantly CD24(+) status. A CD44(+)/CD24(-) gene expression signature was generated, which included CD44 and alpha(6)-integrin (CD49f) among the top-ranked overexpressed genes. Conclusion We demonstrate an association between basal-like and particularly BRCA1 hereditary breast cancer and the presence of CD44(+)/CD24(-) cells. Not all basal-like tumors and very few HER2+ tumors, however, contain CD44(+)/CD24(-) cells, emphasizing that a putative tumorigenic ability may not be confined to cells of this phenotype and that other breast cancer stem cell markers remain to be identified.
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| 8. |
- Jumppanen, Mervi, et al.
(författare)
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Basal-like phenotype is not associated with patient survival in estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancers
- 2007
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 9:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction Basal-phenotype or basal-like breast cancers are characterized by basal epithelium cytokeratin (CK5/14/17) expression, negative estrogen receptor ( ER) status and distinct gene expression signature. We studied the clinical and biological features of the basal-phenotype tumors determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and cDNA microarrays especially within the ER-negative subgroup. Methods IHC was used to evaluate the CK5/14 status of 445 stage II breast cancers. The gene expression signature of the CK5/14 immunopositive tumors was investigated within a subset ( 100) of the breast tumors ( including 50 ER-negative tumors) with a cDNA microarray. Survival for basal-phenotype tumors as determined by CK5/14 IHC and gene expression signature was assessed. Results From the 375 analyzable tumor specimens, 48 (13%) were immunohistochemically positive for CK5/14. We found adverse distant disease-free survival for the CK5/14-positive tumors during the first years ( 3 years hazard ratio (HR) 2.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.17 to 4.24, p = 0.01; 5 years HR 1.80, 95% CI 1.02 to 3.15, p = 0.04) but the significance was lost at the end of the follow-up period ( 10 years HR 1.43, 95% CI 0.84 to 2.43, p = 0.19). Gene expression profiles of immunohistochemically determined CK5/14-positive tumors within the ER-negative tumor group implicated 1,713 differently expressed genes ( p < 0.05). Hierarchical clustering analysis with the top 500 of these genes formed one basal-like and a non-basal-like cluster also within the ER-negative tumor entity. A highly concordant classification could be constructed with a published gene set (Sorlie's intrinsic gene set, concordance 90%). Both gene sets identified a basal-like cluster that included most of the CK5/14-positive tumors, but also immunohistochemically CK5/14-negative tumors. Within the ER-negative tumor entity there was no survival difference between the non-basal and basal-like tumors as identified by immunohistochemical or gene-expression-based classification. Conclusion Basal cytokeratin-positive tumors have a biologically distinct gene expression signature from other ER-negative tumors. Even if basal cytokeratin expression predicts early relapse among non-selected tumors, the clinical outcome of basal tumors is similar to non-basal ER-negative tumors. Immunohistochemically basal cytokeratin-positive tumors almost always belong to the basal-like gene expression profile, but this cluster also includes few basal cytokeratin-negative tumors.
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| 9. |
- Jönsson, Göran B, et al.
(författare)
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Genomic subtypes of breast cancer identified by array-comparative genomic hybridization display distinct molecular and clinical characteristics
- 2010
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Ingår i: Breast Cancer Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 12:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Breast cancer is a profoundly heterogeneous disease with respect to biologic and clinical behavior. Gene-expression profiling has been used to dissect this complexity and to stratify tumors into intrinsic gene-expression subtypes, associated with distinct biology, patient outcome, and genomic alterations. Additionally, breast tumors occurring in individuals with germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations typically fall into distinct subtypes. Methods: We applied global DNA copy number and gene-expression profiling in 359 breast tumors. All tumors were classified according to intrinsic gene-expression subtypes and included cases from genetically predisposed women. The Genomic Identification of Significant Targets in Cancer (GISTIC) algorithm was used to identify significant DNA copy-number aberrations and genomic subgroups of breast cancer. Results: We identified 31 genomic regions that were highly amplified in > 1% of the 359 breast tumors. Several amplicons were found to co-occur, the 8p12 and 11q13.3 regions being the most frequent combination besides amplicons on the same chromosomal arm. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering with 133 significant GISTIC regions revealed six genomic subtypes, termed 17q12, basal-complex, luminal-simple, luminal-complex, amplifier, and mixed subtypes. Four of them had striking similarity to intrinsic gene-expression subtypes and showed associations to conventional tumor biomarkers and clinical outcome. However, luminal A-classified tumors were distributed in two main genomic subtypes, luminal-simple and luminal-complex, the former group having a better prognosis, whereas the latter group included also luminal B and the majority of BRCA2-mutated tumors. The basal-complex subtype displayed extensive genomic homogeneity and harbored the majority of BRCA1-mutated tumors. The 17q12 subtype comprised mostly HER2-amplified and HER2-enriched subtype tumors and had the worst prognosis. The amplifier and mixed subtypes contained tumors from all gene-expression subtypes, the former being enriched for 8p12-amplified cases, whereas the mixed subtype included many tumors with predominantly DNA copy-number losses and poor prognosis. Conclusions: Global DNA copy-number analysis integrated with gene-expression data can be used to dissect the complexity of breast cancer. This revealed six genomic subtypes with different clinical behavior and a striking concordance to the intrinsic subtypes. These genomic subtypes may prove useful for understanding the mechanisms of tumor development and for prognostic and treatment prediction purposes.
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| 10. |
- Kaminska, Kamila, et al.
(författare)
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Distinct mechanisms of resistance to fulvestrant treatment dictate level of ER independence and selective response to CDK inhibitors in metastatic breast cancer
- 2021
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Ingår i: Breast cancer research : BCR. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-5411 .- 1465-542X. ; 23:1, s. 26-26
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Resistance to endocrine treatment in metastatic breast cancer is a major clinical challenge. Clinical tools to predict both drug resistance and possible treatment combination approaches to overcome it are lacking. This unmet need is mainly due to the heterogeneity underlying both the mechanisms involved in resistance development and breast cancer itself.METHODS: To study the complexity of the mechanisms involved in the resistance to the selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) fulvestrant, we performed comprehensive biomarker analyses using several in vitro models that recapitulate the heterogeneity of developed resistance. We further corroborated our findings in tissue samples from patients treated with fulvestrant.RESULTS: We found that different in vitro models of fulvestrant resistance show variable stability in their phenotypes, which corresponded with distinct genomic alterations. Notably, the studied models presented adaptation at different cell cycle nodes to facilitate progression through the cell cycle and responded differently to CDK inhibitors. Cyclin E2 overexpression was identified as a biomarker of a persistent fulvestrant-resistant phenotype. Comparison of pre- and post-treatment paired tumor biopsies from patients treated with fulvestrant revealed an upregulation of cyclin E2 upon development of resistance. Moreover, overexpression of this cyclin was found to be a prognostic factor determining resistance to fulvestrant and shorter progression-free survival.CONCLUSIONS: These data highlight the complexity of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer and suggest that the development of diverse resistance mechanisms dictate levels of ER independence and potentially cross-resistance to CDK inhibitors.
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