Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) shares overlap with the basal molecular subtype of breast cancer and is more frequently diagnosed in African-American (black) women for reasons not understood (1,2). To understand genes whose expression may be of pertinence to the development or progression of triple negative breast cancer, we mined published microarray data (3,4) comparing global gene expression profiles of TNBC histology groups, identifying genes whose expression changed the least between among TNBCs, suggesting that these genes may be important for TNBC biology. We identified the MER proto-oncogene tyrosine kinase MERTK and the Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome candidate 1-like 1 WHSC1L1 among the genes whose expression differed the least when comparing TNBC cases and subtypes. In another dataset, MERTK and WHSCL1 were found to be differentially expressed in TNBC when comparing primary tumors of the breast to normal breast tissue. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that expression levels of MERTK and WHSCL1 correlated with survival outcomes in human breast cancer, and that this correlation differed based on race of the patient. MERTK and WHSCL1 may be of relevance in understanding the etiology or progression of triple negative breast cancer.
Assessment of Tumor Heterogeneity, as Evidenced by Gene Expression Profiles, Pathway Activation, and Gene Copy Number, in Patients with Multifocal Invasive Lobular Breast Tumors
