Researchers map protein changes in breast cancer tumors to predict disease evolution
Scientists combined genetic and protein analysis to track how breast cancers evolve within individual patients, revealing patterns that could improve treatment decisions. The findings suggest doctors may one day predict which tumors will become aggressive, potentially shifting how oncologists personalize therapy and monitor patient outcomes.
Originaltitel: Proteogenomics decodes the evolution of human ipsilateral breast cancer
<p>Ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence (IBTR) is a clinically important event, where an isolated in-breast recurrence is a potentially curable event but associated with an increased risk of distant metastasis and breast cancer death. It remains unclear if IBTRs are associated with molecular changes that can be explored as a resource for precision medicine strategies. Here, we employed proteogenomics to analyze a cohort of 27 primary breast cancers and their matched IBTRs to define proteogenomic determinants of molecular tumor evolution. Our analyses revealed a relationship between hormonal receptors status and proliferation levels resulting in the gain of somatic mutations and copy number. This in turn re-programmed the transcriptome and proteome towards a highly replicating and genomically unstable IBTRs, possibly enhanced by <em>APOBEC3B</em>. In order to investigate the origins of IBTRs, a second analysis that included primaries with no recurrence pinpointed proliferation and immune infiltration as predictive of IBTR. In conclusion, our study shows that breast tumors evolve into different IBTRs depending on hormonal status and proliferation and that immune cell infiltration and Ki-67 are significantly elevated in primary tumors that develop IBTR. These results can serve as a starting point to explore markers to predict IBTR formation and stratify patients for adjuvant therapy.</p>