Quantification of HER2 and estrogen receptor heterogeneity in breast cancer by single-molecule RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization.

ABSTRACT: Intra-tumor heterogeneity is a pervasive property of human cancers that poses a major clinical challenge. Here, we describe the characterization, at the transcriptional level, of the intra-tumor topography of two prominent breast cancer biomarkers and drug targets, epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and estrogen receptor 1 (ER) in 49 archival breast cancer samples. We developed a protocol for single-molecule RNA FISH in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections (FFPE-smFISH), which enabled us to simultaneously detect and perform absolute quantification of HER2 and ER mature transcripts in single cells and multiple tumor regions. We benchmarked our method with standard diagnostic techniques, demonstrating that FFPE-smFISH is able to correctly classify breast cancers into well

SUBMITTER: Annaratone L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5386639 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature