Different gene expressions are associated with the different molecular subtypes of inflammatory breast cancer. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • The goal of this study was to determine whether gene expression differences exist between inflammatory breast cancers (IBC) and T stage-matched non-IBC patients stratified by hormone receptor and HER2 status. We used Affymetrix GeneChips to analyze 82 tumor samples (25 T4d patients, and 57 T4a-c patients) of newly diagnosed breast cancers. Genes that were differentially expressed between the IBC and non-IBC specimens were identified using the t test, and differential expression of gene sets was assessed using gene set analysis. Three distinct clinical subtypes of IBC and non-IBC were compared: ER-positive/HER2-normal, HER2-amplified, and ER-negative/HER2-normal. When we compared expression data from all IBC with all non-IBC, we found no significant differences after adjusting for multiple testing. When IBC and non-IBC tumors were compared by clinical subtype, however, significant differences emerged. Complement and immune system-related pathways were overexpressed in ER-positive/HER2-normal IBC. Protein translation and mTOR signaling were overexpressed in HER2-amplified IBC. Apoptosis-, neural-, and lipid metabolism-related pathways were overexpressed in ER-negative/HER2-normal IBC compared with non-IBC of the same receptor phenotype. In this T stage-matched case-control study, the survival curves of patients with IBC and non-IBC were similar for all three clinical subtypes. IBC tumors can be divided into molecular and clinical subtypes similar to those of non-IBC. Clinical subtypes of IBC show molecular differences compared with similar subtypes of non-IBC.

publication date

  • December 9, 2010

Research

keywords

  • Breast Neoplasms
  • Estrogen Receptor alpha
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
  • Inflammatory Breast Neoplasms

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC4109066

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 79151482682

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1023/A:1024491219366

PubMed ID

  • 21153052

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 125

issue

  • 3