Germline DNA Methylation Associated with Breast Cancer Predisposition
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ABSTRACT: Understanding and explaining hereditary predisposition to cancer has focused on the genetic etiology of the disease. However, mutations in known genes associated with breast cancer such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for less than 25% of familial cases of breast cancer. Heritable epigenetic modifications, in the form of hypermethylated MLH1 promoter alleles, have recently been shown to promote hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer. We investigated the potential for an epigenetic basis for hereditary breast cancer by performing deep bisulfite sequencing of CpG islands and known promoter regions in germline DNA from 100 familial or early-onset breast or ovarian cancer patients.
REPOSITORIES: dbGaP
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Project description:We have analyzed, using DNA microarrays, putative differences in gene-expression level between hereditary BRCA1 mutation-linked and sporadic breast cancer. Our results show that a previously reported marked difference between BRCA1-mutation linked and sporadic breast cancer was probably due to uneven stratification of samples with different ER status and basal-like versus luminal-like subtype. We observed that apparent difference between BRCA1-linked and other types of breast cancer found in univariate analysis was diminished when data were corrected for ER status and molecular subtype in multivariate analyses. In fact, the difference in gene expression pattern of BRCA1-mutated and sporadic cancer is very discrete. These conclusions were supported by the results of Q-PCR validation. We also found that BRCA1 gene inactivation due to promoter hypermethylation had similar effect on general gene expression profile as mutation-induced protein truncation. This suggests that in the molecular studies of hereditary breast cancer, BRCA1 gene methylation should be recognized and considered together with gene mutation. We analyzed 35 breast cancer specimens. Surgical samples obtained during mastectomy were flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C. Only samples from patients without neoadjuvant chemotherapy were used in this study as chemotherapy may seriously affect gene expression profile. All tissue samples were collected at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin. Seventeen tumor samples were collected from patients with hereditary breast cancer: 12 were derived from tumors affecting women with hereditary BRCA1 mutation, the only one from a woman with BRCA2 mutation, while another eight cases had familial history of breast/ovarian cancer, but were negative for the BRCA1/2 mutations (so called BRCAx cases). Proportion of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutated tumors was typical for the Polish population. Ten samples were derived from patients with apparently sporadic disease (no familial history of cancer) while 4 patients had a history of familial cancer aggregation (FCA) but without prevalence of breast/ovarian cancers. Thus, these samples were merged with sporadic samples in most of the analyses. All BRCA1 mutation-linked tumors in our study were negative for estrogen receptor (by immunohistochemistry, standard procedures for ER, PGR and HER2 staining were applied), while the only BRCA2-mutated tumor was ER-positive. There were 26 ductal and 5 medullary carcinomas within the study group, which is consistent with the distribution of histopathological types in BRCA1 mutation carriers. Patients were diagnosed at stage T1-2, N0-1 and M0. Caution: this submission contains the data from 6 microarrays done on the normal/pathologically unchanged breast tissue from breast cancer patiets. The data from normal tissues was not analyzed in the paper BRCA1-related gene signature in breast cancer is strongly influenced by ER status and molecular type by Lisowska et al., 2011, Front Biosci (Elite Ed). 2011 Jan 1;3:125-36
2013-09-05 | E-GEOD-50567 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Breast tumors from BRCA1 germ line mutation carriers typically exhibit features of the basal-like molecular subtype. However, the specific genes recurrently mutated as a consequence of BRCA1 dysfunction have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we utilized gene expression profiling to molecularly subtype 577 breast tumors, including 73 breast tumors from BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Focusing on the RB1 locus, we analyzed 33 BRCA1-mutated, 36 BRCA2-mutated and 48 non-BRCA1/2-mutated breast tumors using a custom-designed high-density oligomicroarray covering the RB1 gene. We found a strong association between the basal-like subtype and BRCA1-mutated breast tumors and the luminal B subtype and BRCA2-mutated breast tumors. RB1 was identified as a major target for genomic disruption in tumors arising in BRCA1 mutation carriers and in sporadic tumors with BRCA1 promoter-methylation, but rarely in other breast cancers. Homozygous deletions, intragenic breaks, or microdeletions were found in 33% of BRCA1-mutant tumors, 36% of BRCA1 promoter-methylated basal-like tumors, 13% of non-BRCA1 deficient basal-like tumors, and 3% of BRCA2-mutated tumors. In addition, RB1 was frequently inactivated by gross gene disruption in BRCA1-related hereditary breast cancer and BRCA1-methylated sporadic basal-like breast cancer, but rarely in BRCA2-hereditary breast cancer and non-BRCA1-deficient sporadic breast cancers. Together, our findings demonstrate the existence of genetic heterogeneity within the basal-like breast cancer subtype that is based upon BRCA1-status. Gene expression profiling of breast tumors. Dual color common reference gene expression study using 55K oligonucleotide microarrays.
2012-06-26 | E-GEOD-25307 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:In more than 70% of families with a strong history of breast and ovarian cancers, pathogenic mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 cannot be identified, even though hereditary factors are expected to be involved. It has been proposed that tumors with similar molecular phenotypes also share similar pathophysiological mechanisms. Grouping into molecularly homogeneous subsets may therefore be of potential value for further genetic analysis in order to identify new high penetrance breast cancer genes. In the current study, the aim was to investigate if global RNA profiling can be used to identify functional subgroups within breast tumors from families tested negative for BRCA1/2 germline mutations and how these subgroupings relate to different breast cancer patients within the same family. By analyzing a collection of 70 breast tumor biopsies from 58 families, we show that distinct functional subgroupings, similar to the intrinsic molecular breast cancer subtypes, exist. The distribution of subtypes was markedly different from the distribution found among BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. From 11 breast cancer families, breast tumor biopsies from more than one affected family member were included in the study. Notably, in 8 of these families we found that patients from the same family shared the same tumor subtype, showing a tendency of familial aggregation of tumor subtypes (p-value = 1.7e-3). Our finding indicates involvement of hereditary factors in these families in which family members may carry genetic susceptibility not just to breast cancer but to a particular subtype of breast cancer. Using our previously developed BRCA1/2-signatures, we identified 7 non-BRCA1/2 tumors with a BRCA1-like molecular phenotype and provide evidence for epigenetic inactivation of BRCA1 in three of the tumors. In addition, 7 BRCA2-like tumors were found. This is the first study to provide a biological link between breast cancers from family members of high risk non-BRCA1/2 families in a systematic manner, suggesting that future genetic analysis may benefit from subgrouping families into molecularly homogeneous subtypes in order to identify new high penetrance susceptibility genes. Gene expression profiling of 253 breast tumor samples. Breast tumor tissue from 125 patients with germline mutations in BRCA1 (n = 33) or BRCA2 (n = 22) or with no detectable germline mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 (n = 70) were included in the study. Serving as a representative control group, primary breast tumor samples (n = 128) were randomly selected among available samples originating from the same department and time period as for the hereditary samples. The study was conducted using Agilent-029949 Custom SurePrint G3 Human GE 8x60K Microarray platform.
2015-08-01 | E-GEOD-49481 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Background:This study was a hypothesis generating exploration of genomic data collected at diagnosis for 19 patients, who later participated in a clinical trial. BRCA1/2 germline mutation related hereditary cancers are candidates for new immune therapeutic interventions. However, contrary to what is expected of tumors with compromised DNA repair, a prominent tumor mutation burden (TMB) in hereditary breast and ovarian cancers in this cohort, was not correlated with high global immune activity in their microenvironments. More information is needed about the relationship between genomic instability, phenotypes and immune microenvironments of BRCA1/2 related hereditary tumors in order to find appropriate markers of immune activity and the most effective anticancer immune strategies. Methods:Mining and statistical analyses of the original DNA and RNA sequencing data and data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were performed using the R computing environment. To interpret the data, we have used published literature and web available resources such as Gene Ontology Tools, The Cancer immunome Atlas (TCIA) and the Cancer Research Institute iAtlas. Results: We found that BRCA1/2 germline related breast and ovarian cancers do not represent a unique phenotypic identity, but that they express a range of phenotypes similar to sporadic cancers. Importantly, BRCA2 germline mutation related breast tumors have a different profile of genomic instability compared to those related to BRCA1. However, all breast and ovarian BRCA1/2 related tumors are characterized by high homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) and low aneuploidy. Interestingly, all sporadic high grade serous ovarian cancers (HGSOC) and most of the subtypes of triple negative breast cancers (TNBC), but not other types of breast cancer, also express a high degree of HRD. Conclusion: : Tumor mutation burdon (TMB) is not associated with the magnitude of the immune response in hereditary BRCA1/2 related breast and ovarian cancers or in sporadic TNBC and sporadic HGSOC. Hereditary tumors express phenotypes as heterogenous as sporadic tumors with various degree of “BRCAness” and various characteristics of the immune microenvironments. The subtyping criteria developed for sporadic tumors can be applied for the classification of hereditary tumors and possibly also characterization of their immune microenvironment. A high HRD score may be a good candidate biomarker for response to platinum, and potentially PARP-inhibition.
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Project description:It is now well understood that epigenetic alterations occur frequently in sporadic breast carcinogenesis, but little is known about the epigenetic alterations associated with familial breast tumors. We performed genome-wide DNA methylation profiling on familial breast cancers (n=33) to identify patterns of methylation specific to the different mutation groups (BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAx) or intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer (basal, luminal A, luminal B, HER2 and normal-like). We used methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (meDIP) on Affymetrix human promoter chips to interrogate methylation profiles across 25,500 distinct transcripts.
2010-03-12 | GSE17125 | GEO
Project description:Breast tumors from BRCA1 germ line mutation carriers typically exhibit features of the basal-like molecular subtype. However, the specific genes recurrently mutated as a consequence of BRCA1 dysfunction have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we utilized gene expression profiling to molecularly subtype 577 breast tumors, including 73 breast tumors from BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Focusing on the RB1 locus, we analyzed 33 BRCA1-mutated, 36 BRCA2-mutated and 48 non-BRCA1/2-mutated breast tumors using a custom-designed high-density oligomicroarray covering the RB1 gene. We found a strong association between the basal-like subtype and BRCA1-mutated breast tumors and the luminal B subtype and BRCA2-mutated breast tumors. RB1 was identified as a major target for genomic disruption in tumors arising in BRCA1 mutation carriers and in sporadic tumors with BRCA1 promoter-methylation, but rarely in other breast cancers. Homozygous deletions, intragenic breaks, or microdeletions were found in 33% of BRCA1-mutant tumors, 36% of BRCA1 promoter-methylated basal-like tumors, 13% of non-BRCA1 deficient basal-like tumors, and 3% of BRCA2-mutated tumors. In addition, RB1 was frequently inactivated by gross gene disruption in BRCA1-related hereditary breast cancer and BRCA1-methylated sporadic basal-like breast cancer, but rarely in BRCA2-hereditary breast cancer and non-BRCA1-deficient sporadic breast cancers. Together, our findings demonstrate the existence of genetic heterogeneity within the basal-like breast cancer subtype that is based upon BRCA1-status.
2012-06-27 | GSE25307 | GEO
Project description:We have analyzed, using DNA microarrays, putative differences in gene-expression level between hereditary BRCA1 mutation-linked and sporadic breast cancer. Our results show that a previously reported marked difference between BRCA1-mutation linked and sporadic breast cancer was probably due to uneven stratification of samples with different ER status and basal-like versus luminal-like subtype. We observed that apparent difference between BRCA1-linked and other types of breast cancer found in univariate analysis was diminished when data were corrected for ER status and molecular subtype in multivariate analyses. In fact, the difference in gene expression pattern of BRCA1-mutated and sporadic cancer is very discrete. These conclusions were supported by the results of Q-PCR validation. We also found that BRCA1 gene inactivation due to promoter hypermethylation had similar effect on general gene expression profile as mutation-induced protein truncation. This suggests that in the molecular studies of hereditary breast cancer, BRCA1 gene methylation should be recognized and considered together with gene mutation.
2013-09-05 | GSE50567 | GEO
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Project description:Only about 25% of familial breast cancer is explained by mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2, fewer by moderate penetrance genes like P53, PTEN, CHEK2, ATM and PALB2 and an unknown fraction by common variants of genes with low penetrance. Evidence suggests that additional dominant breast cancer genes exist and these are referred to as BRCAX. Clinical presentation of families with highly increased incidence of breast cancer that are non-BRCA1/BRCA2, suggests dominant inheritance of such high penetrance breast cancer genes. Because cancer genes often confer a specific clinical presentation (e.g. age of onset, sex-ratio, tissue spectrum) it seems useful to initiate their discovery by such clinical criteria. An earlier linkage study of BRCAX / non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families aimed to enrich for a common genetic defect by setting stringent inclusion criteria, failed to identify new breast cancer susceptibility loci. Motivated by results of BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast tumors that have characteristic genomic signatures (array-CGH 'phenotypes'), we present the largest dataset to date showing the genomic profiles of 58 BRCAX primary breast tumors by array-CGH and show by unsupervised hierarchical clustering that they form a heterogeneous group with 4 distinct subtypes that are different from (n = 48) sporadic controls. This provides a possible explanation for the lack of high LOD scores in linkage studies. The presence of more than one BRCAX sub-type suggests the existence of more than one BRCAX gene. We propose approaches that can be employed to stratify BRCAX families based on array-CGH data. 58 primary breast carcinomas from non-BRCA1/2 hereditary breast cancer families (HBC) compared to 48 sporadic tumors
2011-02-01 | E-GEOD-18626 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:About 25% of familial breast cancer (BC) is attributed to germline mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes while the rest of patients are included in the BRCAX group. BC also affects men with a worldwide incidence of 1%. The epigenetic alterations, including those DNA methylation, have been rarely studied in the male breast cancer (MBC) on a genome-wide level. The aim of the current work was to study the global DNA methylation profiles of BC patients to look for differences between familial female breast cancer (FBC) and MBC and according to BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX mutation status. The genomic DNA from FFPE tissues of 17 female and 7 male patients with BC was subjected to methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) and hybridized on human promoter microarrays. The comparison between FBC and MBC showed 2846 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) corresponding to 2486 distinct annotated genes. The gene ontology enrichment analysis revealdrelevant molecular function terms such as the GTPase superfamily genes (in particular the GTPase Rho GAP/GEF and GTPase RAB) and cellular component terms associated to cytoskeletal architecture such as “cytoskeletal part”, “keratin filament”, “intermediate filament". By considering only FBC, several cancer-associated pathways were the most enriched KEGG pathways of differentially methylated genes between BRCA2 and BRCAX or BRCA1+BRCAX groups. The comparison between BRCA1 group vs BRCA2+BRCAX group displayed the enriched molecular function term “cytoskeletal protein binding”. Finally, the functional annotation of differentially methylated genes between BRCAX and BRCA1+BRCA2 groups indicated that the most enriched molecular function terms were related to GTPase activity. In summary, this is the first study that compares the global DNA methylation profile of familial FBC and MBC and the results may provide useful insights into the epigenomic subtyping of breast cancer and shed light on a possible new molecular mechanisms underlying BC carcinogenesis.
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