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In an article published in the July 2006 issue of American Journal of Human Genetics (Vol. 78, pp. 961-972), Weber et al. have shown that the tumor microenvironment of sporadic breast cancer is diverse in genetic alterations and contributes to the cancer phenotype.
They conducted a total genome LOH/AI scan of DNA derived from the epithelium and stroma of 51 BRCA1/2-related breast cancers, using 372 microsatellite markers. They compared these data with those from a set of 134 sporadic breast cancers. The data indicate that, in HBOC-related breast cancers, the accumulation of genomic instability in the cancer stroma coincides with that in the neoplastic epithelium, and the authors postulate that such a genetically unstable stroma might facilitate a microenvironment that functions as a landscaper that promotes genomic instability in the epithelium and, subsequently, neoplastic transformation. Author contacts: Frank Weber , Genomic Medicine Institute, Lerner Research Institute, and Cancer Research UK Human Cancer Genetics Research Group, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Charis Eng, Genomic Medicine Institute, Lerner Research Institute, and Cancer Research UK Human Cancer Genetics Research Group, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Abstract available online. (C) American Journal of Human Genetics. Posted by: Tressie Dalaya.
Message posted by: Trevor M. D'Souza
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