Project description:Approximately 25% of hereditary breast cancer cases associated with a strong familial history can be explained by mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 and other lower penetrance genes. The remaining high-risk families could be classified as BRCAX (non-BRCA1/2) families, in which no penetrant mutation has been found until now. Gene expression involving alternative splicing represents a well-known mechanism regulating the expression of multiple transcripts encoded by individual genes, which could be involved in cancer development. Thus using RNA-seq methodology, the analysis of transcriptome in immortalized lymphoblastoid cell lines of high-risk breast cancer individuals could reveal transcripts implicated in breast cancer susceptibility and development. RNA was extracted from immortalized lymphoblastoid cell lines of 117 women (affected and unaffected) coming from BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX families. Anova analysis revealed a total of 95 transcripts corresponding to 85 different genes differentially expressed (Bonferroni corrected p-value <0.01) between those groups. Hierarchical clustering allowed distinctive subgrouping of BRCA1/2 subgroups from BRCAX individuals, without regard for the cancer status. We found enrichment for pathways in signaling cascades including mTOR and EIF2-related pathways. No transcripts were differentially expressed between BRCA1 and BRCA2 individuals, however out of 95 transcripts, 67 could discriminate BRCAX from combination of BRCA1 and BRCA2 individuals. On the other hand, 28 transcripts could discriminate affected from unaffected BRCAX individuals. These BRCAX-associated transcripts demonstrated enrichment in Telomere Extension by Telomerase and Double-Strand Break Repair by Non-Homologous End Joining mechanisms. To our knowledge, this represents the first study identifying transcripts differentially expressed in immortalized lymphoblastoid cell lines coming from the major classes of mutation-related breast cancer subgroups, namely BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX. Moreover, some transcripts could discriminate affected from unaffected BRCAX individuals, which could represent potential therapeutic targets for breast cancer treatment.
Project description:Use of DNA damaging agents and RNA pooling to assess expression profiles associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status in familial breast cancer patients Background: A large number of rare sequence variants of unknown clinical significance have been identified in the breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. Determining the functional effect of these variants as well as their role in breast cancer susceptibility can be challenging using current classification methods. Methodology/Principal Findings: To identify predictors of pathogenic mutation status in familial breast cancer patients, we explored the use of gene expression arrays to assess the effect of two DNA damaging agents (irradiation and mitomycin C) on cellular response in relation to BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status. A range of regimes were used to treat 27 lymphoblastoid cell-lines (LCLs) derived from affected women in high-risk breast cancer families (nine BRCA1, nine BRCA2, and nine non-BRCA1/2 or BRCAX individuals) and nine LCLs from healthy individuals. Using an RNA pooling strategy, we found that treating LCLs with 1.2 μM mitomycin C and measuring the gene expression profiles 1 hour post-treatment had the greatest potential to discriminate BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX mutation status. A classifier was built using the expression profile of nine QRT-PCR validated genes that were associated with BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX status in RNA pools. These nine genes could distinguish BRCA1 from BRCA2 carriers with 83% accuracy in individual samples, but three-way analysis for BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX had a maximum of 59% prediction accuracy. Conclusions/Significance: Our results suggest that, compared to BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, non-BRCA1/2 (BRCAX) individuals are genetically heterogeneous. This study also demonstrates the effectiveness of RNA pools to compare the expression profiles of cell-lines from BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX cases after treatment with irradiation and mitomycin C as a method to prioritize treatment regimes for detailed downstream expression analysis.
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.
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.
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
Project description:Identification of novel, highly penetrant, breast cancer susceptibility genes will require the application of additional strategies beyond that of traditional linkage and candidate gene approaches. Approximately one-third of inherited genetic diseases, including breast cancer susceptibility, are caused by frameshift or nonsense mutations that truncate the protein product [1]. Transcripts harbouring premature termination codons are selectively and rapidly degraded by the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway. Blocking the NMD pathway in any given cell will stabilise these mutant transcripts, which can then be detected using gene expression microarrays. This technique, known as gene identification by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition (GINI), has proved successful in identifying sporadic nonsense mutations involved in many different cancer types. However, the approach has not yet been applied to identify germline mutations involved in breast cancer. We therefore attempted to use GINI on lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from multiple-case, non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families in order to identify additional high-risk breast cancer susceptibility genes. We applied GINI to a total of 24 LCLs,established from breast-cancer affected and unaffected women from three multiple-case non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families. We then used Illumina gene expression microarrays to identify transcripts stabilised by the NMD inhibition. Total RNA obtained from the lymphoblastoid cell lines derived from 24 individuals.
Project description:The functional consequences of missense variants in disease genes are difficult to predict. We assessed if gene expression profiles could distinguish between BRCA1 or BRCA2 pathogenic truncating and missense mutation carriers and familial breast cancer cases whose disease was not attributable to BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations (BRCAX cases). 72 cell lines from affected women in high-risk breast-ovarian families were assayed after exposure to ionising irradiation, including 23 BRCA1 carriers, 22 BRCA2 carriers, and 27 BRCAX individuals. A subset of 10 BRCAX individuals carried rare BRCA1/2 sequence variants considered to be of low clinical significance (LCS). BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers had similar expression profiles, with some subclustering of missense mutation carriers. The majority of BRCAX individuals formed a distinct cluster, but BRCAX individuals with LCS variants had expression profiles similar to BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Gaussian Process Classifier predicted BRCA1, BRCA2 and BRCAX status with a maximum of 62% accuracy, and prediction accuracy decreased with inclusion of BRCAX samples carrying an LCS variant, and inclusion of pathogenic missense carriers. Similarly, prediction of mutation status with gene lists derived using Support Vector Machines was good for BRCAX samples without an LCS variant (82-94%), poor for BRCAX with an LCS (40-50%), and improved for pathogenic BRCA1/2 mutation carriers when the gene list used for prediction was appropriate to mutation effect being tested (71-100%). This study indicates that mutation effect, and presence of rare variants possibly associated with a low risk of cancer, must be considered in the development of array-based assays of variant pathogenicity. Keywords: cell type comparison, stress response
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.
Project description:Breast cancer is the most common cancer in females, affecting one in every eight women and accounting for the majority of cancer-related deaths in women worldwide. Germline mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are significant risk factors for specific subtypes of breast cancer. BRCA1 mutations are associated with basal-like breast cancers, whereas BRCA2 mutations are associated with luminal-like disease. Defects in mammary epithelial cell differentiation have been previously recognized in germline BRCA1/2 mutation carriers even before cancer incidence. However, the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. Here, we employ spatial transcriptomics to investigate defects in mammary epithelial cell differentiation accompanied by distinct microenvironmental alterations in preneoplastic breast tissues from BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and normal breast tissues from non-carrier controls. We uncovered spatially defined receptor-ligand interactions in these tissues for the investigation of autocrine and paracrine signaling. We discovered that β1-integrin-mediated autocrine signaling in BRCA2-deficient mammary epithelial cells may differ from BRCA1-deficient mammary epithelial cells. In addition, we found that the epithelial-to-stromal paracrine signaling in the breast tissues of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers is greater than in control tissues. More integrin-ligand pairs were differentially correlated in BRCA1/2-mutant breast tissues than non-carrier breast tissues with more integrin receptor-expressing stromal cells. Implications: These results suggest alterations in the communication between mammary epithelial cells and the microenvironment in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, laying the foundation for designing innovative breast cancer chemo-prevention strategies for high-risk patients.
Project description:Pathogenic germline mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 are detected in less than one third of families with a strong history of breast cancer. It is therefore expected that mutations still remain undetected by currently used screening methods. In addition, a growing number of BRCA1/2 sequence variants of unclear pathogen significance are found in the families, constituting an increasing clinical challenge. New methods are therefore needed to improve the detection rate and aid the interpretation of the clinically uncertain variants. In this study we analyzed a series of 33 BRCA1, 22 BRCA2, and 128 sporadic tumors by RNA profiling to investigate the classification potential of RNA profiles to predict BRCA1/2 mutation status. We found that breast tumors from BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers display characteristic RNA expression patterns, allowing them to be distinguished from sporadic tumors. The majority of BRCA1 tumors were basal-like while BRCA2 tumors were mainly luminal B. Using RNA profiles, we were able to distinguish BRCA1 tumors from sporadic tumors among basal-like tumors with 83% accuracy and BRCA2 from sporadic tumors among luminal B tumors with 89% accuracy. Furthermore, subtype-specific BRCA1/2 gene signatures were successfully validated in two independent data sets with high accuracies. Although additional validation studies are required, indication of BRCA1/2 involvement (“BRCAness”) by RNA profiling could potentially be valuable as a tool for distinguishing pathogenic mutations from benign variants, for identification of undetected mutation carriers, and for selecting patients sensitive to new therapeutics such as PARP inhibitors. Gene expression profiling of 183 breast tumor samples. Breast tumors from hereditary breast cancer patients carrying a pathogenic BRCA1 (n=33) or BRCA2 (n=22) germ-line mutation were included in the study. Serving as a representative control group, primary breast tumor samples (n=128) were randomly selected. The study was conducted using Agilent-029949 Custom SurePrint G3 Human GE 8x60K Microarray platform. For cross-platform validation, a subset of the tumor samples (92 of the 183 samples) were analyzed by our in-house spotted microarray platform.