Endothelial-like properties of claudin-low breast cancer cells promote tumor vascular permeability and metastasis.

ABSTRACT: The vasculature serves as the main conduit for breast tumor metastases and is a target of therapeutics in many tumor types. In this study, we aimed to determine if tumor-associated vascular properties could help to explain the differences observed in metastagenicity across the intrinsic subtypes of human breast tumors. Analysis of gene expression signatures from more than 3,000 human breast tumors found that genomic programs that measured vascular quantity, vascular proliferation, and a VEGF/Hypoxia-signature were the most highly expressed in claudin-low and basal-like tumors. The majority of the vascular gene signatures added metastasis-predictive information to immunohistochemistry-defined microvessel density scores and genomically defined-intrinsic subtype classification. Interestingly,

SUBMITTER: Harrell JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3892109 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature