Research article

Gene expression profiling identifies activated growth factor signaling in poor prognosis (Luminal-B) estrogen receptor positive breast cancer

Sherene Loi^1,2,3 , Christos Sotiriou² , Benjamin Haibe-Kains² , Francoise Lallemand² , Nelly M Conus¹ , Martine J Piccart² , Terence P Speed⁴ and Grant A McArthur^1,3

¹Department of Research, Molecular Oncology Lab, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

²Translational and Functional Genomics Unit, Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium

³Department of Medicine, St. Vincent Hospital, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

⁴Department of Bioinformatics, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medical Genomics 2009, 2:37doi:10.1186/1755-8794-2-37

Published:	24 June 2009

Abstract

Background

Within estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (ER+ BC), the expression levels of proliferation-related genes can define two clinically distinct molecular subtypes. When treated with adjuvant tamoxifen, those ER+ BCs that are lowly proliferative have a good prognosis (luminal-A subtype), however the clinical outcome of those that are highly proliferative is poor (luminal-B subtype).

Methods

To investigate the biological basis for these observations, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed using microarray data from 246 ER+ BC samples from women treated with adjuvant tamoxifen monotherapy. To create an in vitro model of growth factor (GF) signaling activation, MCF-7 cells were treated with heregulin (HRG), an HER3 ligand.

Results

We found that a gene set linked to GF signaling was significantly enriched in the luminal-B tumors, despite only 10% of samples over-expressing HER2 by immunohistochemistry. To determine the biological significance of this observation, MCF-7 cells were treated with HRG. These cells displayed phosphorylation of HER2/3 and downstream ERK and S6. Treatment with HRG overcame tamoxifen-induced cell cycle arrest with higher S-phase fraction and increased anchorage independent colony formation. Gene expression profiles of MCF-7 cells treated with HRG confirmed enrichment of the GF signaling gene set and a similar proliferative signature observed in human ER+ BCs resistant to tamoxifen.

Conclusion

These data demonstrate that activation of GF signaling pathways, independent of HER2 over-expression, could be contributing to the poor prognosis of the luminal-B ER+ BC subtype.