Transcriptional complementarity in breast cancer: application to detection of circulating tumor cells

• Published in: Molecular diagnosis Vol. 6; no. 2; p. 79
• Main Authors: Houghton, R L, Dillon, D C, Molesh, D A, Zehentner, B K, Xu, J, Jiang, J, Schmidt, C, Frudakis, A, Repasky, E, Maltez Filho, A, Nolasco, M, Badaro, R, Zhang, X, Roche, P C, Persing, D H, Reed, S G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-06-2001
• Subjects: Breast Neoplasms - blood; Breast Neoplasms - diagnosis; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; DNA, Complementary - metabolism; Down-Regulation; Female; Humans; Magnetics; Mammaglobin A; Neoplasm Proteins - biosynthesis; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating; Nucleic Acid Hybridization; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Transcription, Genetic; Up-Regulation; Uteroglobin - biosynthesis
• ISSN: 1084-8592
• DOI: 10.1007/BF03262038

We used a combination of genetic subtraction, silicon DNA microarray analysis, and quantitative PCR to identify tissue- and tumor-specific genes as diagnostic targets for breast cancer.
From a large number of candidate antigens, several specific subsets of genes were identified that showed concordant and complementary expression profiles. Whereas transcriptional profiling of mammaglobin resulted in the detection of 70% of tumors in a panel of 46 primary and metastatic breast cancers, the inclusion of three additional markers resulted in detection of all 46 specimens. Immunomagnetic epithelial cell enrichment of circulating tumor cells from the peripheral blood of patients with metastatic breast cancer, coupled with RT-PCR-based amplification of breast tumor-specific transcripts, resulted in the detection of anchorage-independent tumor cells in the majority of patients with breast cancer with known metastatic disease.
Complementation of mammaglobin with three additional genes in RT-PCR increases the detection of breast cancers in tissue and circulating tumor cells.