Tissue Microarray-Based Digital Spatial Profiling of Benign Breast Lobules and Breast Cancers: Feasibility, Biological Coherence, and Cross-Platform Benchmarks.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Discovering risk biomarkers in small benign breast disease (BBD) biopsies is constrained by scarce tissue and microanatomic heterogeneity of terminal duct lobular units (TDLUs). We tested whether tissue-sparing tissue microarray (TMA)-based Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) can deliver reproducible, biologically coherent protein measurements across benign lobules and breast cancers (BCs), and how well DSP aligns with standard immunoassays.

Methods

We performed a pilot using tissues from the Mayo Clinic BBD cohort using TMAs representing four contexts: terminal duct lobular units (TDLUs) from BBD biopsies preceding BC and matched BBD-controls, subsequent BCs, and BC-associated TDLUs. We profiled 79 proteins by DSP (37 retained after QC) and benchmarked against chromo

SUBMITTER: Sherman ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12691068 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature