Role of BRCA1 in Estrogen Receptor Expression in Breast Cancer

Abstract

The overall goal of our research is to investigate the correlation between BRCA1-mutated breast cancers and the Estrogen Receptor (ER)-negative phenotype. During the past year, we have focused on analysis of the CpG methylation status of the ER promoter, a proposed molecular mechanism by which sporadic ER-negative tumors lack expression of ER. We have analyzed a panel of human breast cancer cell lines and a collection of specimens from ER-negative breast cancers by two established assays. The one cell line in our panel that derived from a BRCA1 mutation carrier (HCC1937) was significantly hypomethylated, relative to the other ER-negative lines. in contrast, DNA from ER-negative BRCA1-linked breast cancers was somewhat more methylated than a parallel cohort of ER-negative non BRCA1-linked cancers, indicating that the HCC1937 line is not representative of BRCA1-derived tumors in this regard. We have recently developed a semi-quantitative sequence analysis-based method to assay a greater number of CpG sites within the ER promoter, and will apply this to our specimens.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA405018

Entities

People

  • Kristen A. Doherty

Organizations

  • Dartmouth College

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amplification
  • Biomedical Research
  • Breast Cancer
  • Cell Line
  • Cells
  • Electronic Mail
  • Estrogens
  • Genetic Phenomena
  • Information Operations
  • Intensity
  • Methylation
  • Mutations
  • Neoplasms
  • New Hampshire
  • Sequence Analysis
  • Sequences

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Molecular and genetic basis of cancer.