FGF12 is differentially expressed in the brain metastases of patients with metastatic breast cancer.
Metastasis to the brain is a clinical problem in patients with breast cancer (1-3). We mined published microarray data (4, 5) to compare primary and metastatic tumor transcriptomes to discover genes associated with brain metastasis in patients with metastatic breast cancer. We found that the fibroblast growth factor 12, encoded by FGF12, was among the genes whose expression was most different in the brain metastases of patients with metastatic breast cancer as compared to normal breast tissues. FGF12 mRNA expression was significantly higher in brain metastatic tissues as compared to primary tumors of the breast. Up-regulation of FGF12 expression may contribute to metastasis of tumor cells from the breast to the brain in humans with metastatic breast cancer.