ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: In Western countries, breast cancer incidence and mortality are higher than in Mediterranean countries. These differences have been ascribed to environmental factors but also to late-stage diagnostic and biological specific characteristics. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between September 2002 and September 2005, we collected clinical data by phone counselling 180 French and Mediterranean breast cancer patients and performed microarray experiments. RESULTS: Characteristics of breast cancer in patients from Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco were more aggressive (more SBR grade III and positive node invasion) and patients were 10 years younger at diagnosis. Sixteen differentially expressed genes such as MMP9, VEGF, PHB1, BRCA1, TFAP2C, GJA1 and TFF1 were also found. Additionally, an up-regulation of cytokeratins KRT8 and KRT18 may indicate a luminal B subtype in "South" (Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco) tumors while "North" (France) tumors may more frequently be luminal A type. CONCLUSION: This study allowed the identification of specific clinical and transcriptomic parameters in patients from South Mediterranean countries.
Subject(s)
Biomarkers, Tumor/genetics , Breast Neoplasms/genetics , Gene Expression Profiling , Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic , Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis/methods , Breast Neoplasms/metabolism , Breast Neoplasms/pathology , Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast/genetics , Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast/metabolism , Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast/secondary , Carcinoma, Lobular/genetics , Carcinoma, Lobular/metabolism , Carcinoma, Lobular/secondary , Female , France , Humans , Lebanon , Middle Aged , Morocco , Prognosis , Prohibitins , TunisiaABSTRACT
Toxicogenomics is an emerging technology that defines the use of novel genomic techniques to investigate the adverse effects of xenobiotic on gene expression. Toxicogenomics is based on the fact that most of relevant toxicological effects of a compound affect directly or indirectly the gene expression. The most common methods to profile gene expression at the transcript level are Northern Blotting and the real-time PCR. While commonly used and well accepted, these techniques are now superseded by new technologies allowing the analysis of the expression for multiple genes simultaneously. DNA microarrays are now developed for simultaneous gene analysis but inherent to such multiple assays, their quantitative aspect and their relevance for toxicogenomics have been questioned. We will review here recent studies on their use for toxicogenomics and examine the possible future of such technology in complementation with the other toxicology methods.
