Differential expression of CD34 in cancers of the breast.
Breast cancer affects women at relatively high frequency (1). We mined published microarray datasets (2, 3) to determine in an unbiased fashion and at the systems level genes most differentially expressed in the primary tumors of patients with breast cancer. We report here significant differential expression of CD34 when comparing primary tumors of the breast to the tissue of origin, the normal breast. CD34 expression in primary tumors of the breast was significantly lower than in normal breast tissue, and relapse-free and overall survival in breast cancer patients was significantly worse CD34 patients with low tumor expression of CD34 than in patients with high tumor expression of CD34. CD34 may be of relevance to initiation, maintenance or progression of cancers of the female breast.