The Impact of Ethnicity-Dependent Differences in Breast Epithelial Hierarchy on Tumor Incidence and Characteristics

Abstract

The incidence of young-onset and the most aggressive triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is significantly higher in African American than Caucasian women suggesting that the biology of normal breast epithelial cells between these two ethnic groups differ, which may contribute to altered susceptibility to tumor initiation, progression and/or metastasis. To address this hypothesis, we have generated immortalized cell lines from healthy breast tissues of African American and Caucasian women and transformed these cells with mutant p53, activated K-RAS,and PIK3CA. Unlike previous published studies, these transformed cells, particularly from Caucasian, displayed luminal progenitor phenotype. Transformed cells are being characterized for signal transduction pathway activation. Transformed cells from African American women showed aggressive phenotype with inherent plasticity and epithelial to mesenchymal transition like features. Xenograft studies are underway to determine whether these transformed cells show ethnicity-dependent differences in tumorigenecity and metastasis.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2016
Accession Number
AD1025977

Entities

People

  • Brijesh Kumar
  • Harikrishna Nakshatri
  • Mayuri Prasad

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • African Americans
  • Breast Cancer
  • Cancer
  • Caucasians
  • Cell Line
  • Cell Physiological Processes
  • Cells
  • Epithelial Cells
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Genes
  • Genetics
  • Hierarchies
  • Metastasis
  • Neoplasms
  • Phenotypes
  • Proteins
  • Stem Cells

Readers

  • Gender and Food Studies
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Molecular and genetic basis of cancer.