Matrix metalloproteinase 14 (MMP14) is differentially expressed in breast cancer metastases.
Breast cancer is a leading cause of death for women (1, 2). We mined public datasets to understand the most significant transcriptional and epigenomic changes between primary tumors of the breast and the metastases that they generate (3-6). In metastases to both the brain (3) and the bones (4), the matrix metalloproteinase 14 (MMP14) was among the genes whose expression changes most significantly between the transcriptomes of metastatic tissue to that of primary breast tumor. In metastases to the lymph nodes, a site at the MMP14 genomic locus contained significantly less methyl marks than the same site in primary tumors. The MMP14 gene was hypomethylated during spread of the breast cancer to the lymph node, MMP14 among the genes whose expression changed most significantly across the entire brain and bone transcriptome, and MMP14 messenger RNA was expressed at significantly lower levels in metastases across both tissues. Interestingly, primary tumors with metastatic potential expressed higher levels of MMP14 than primary tumors without metastatic potential. MMP14 is a target of interest in metastatic breast cancer.