The Estrogen Receptor and Its Variants as Risk Factors in Breast Cancer
Abstract
The overall goal of this research is to understand how the estrogen receptor (ER) signal transduction pathway is altered during breast tumorigenesis and if enhanced and/or aberrant ER signal transduction increases the risk of developing breast cancer. Our previous data suggested that altered expression of ER alpha, ER beta and their variants occurs during breast tumorigenesis. Our current data suggest that expression of cofactors which enhance ER activity, i.e. SRA, is increased during breast tumorigenesis while expression of cofactors which can repress ER activity, i.e. REA, either does not change or is not increased to a similar extent during breast tumorigenesis. Overall the data support the hypothesis that a substantial alteration of estrogen signaling pathways occurs during human breast tumorigenesis. In addition both our previous and our current data provide a very strong rationale to determine in parallel ER isoform/variant expression and cofactor expression during the early stages of preneoplastic progression that precede the onset of invasive breast cancer and determine if differences exist between normal women and patients who develop breast cancer, in order to assess a potential role in increasing the risk of invasive breast cancer. Identification, retrieval, review and collection of appropriate tissues blocks from a preliminary group of cases/controls in the Manitoba Breast Event Database has been completed and analyses of these tissue sections is in progress.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADB262451
Entities
People
- Leigh Murphy
Organizations
- University of Manitoba