C17orf37 is a differentially expressed gene in brain metastatic human 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 for the discovery of genes associated with brain metastasis in humans with metastatic breast cancer. We found that open reading frame 37 on chromosome 17, also known as the migration and invasion enhancer 1 (MIEN1), encoded by C17orf37, was among the genes whose expression was most different in the brain metastases of patients with metastatic breast cancer as compared to primary tumors of the breast. C17orf37 mRNA was present at increased quantities in brain metastatic tissues as compared to primary tumors of the breast. Modulation of C17orf37 expression may be relevant to the biology by which tumor cells metastasize from the breast to the brain in humans with metastatic breast cancer.