Molecular Signature of Pregnancy Associated Breast Cancer (PABC)

Malignant epithelia and tumor-associated stroma of PABC and Non-PABC were isolated by laser capture microdissection and gene expression profiled. Additionally, normal breast epithelia and stroma adjacent to the two tumor types were profiled. Lastly, subsets of previously identified E- and P-regulated genes were defined in all tissues. Breast cancers have been obtained from women whose tumors arose while they were pregnant or within 1 year of delivery and from age-matched controls who had never been pregnant. Malignant epithelial cells were separated by laser capture microdissection (LCM) of frozen sections. RNA was isolated and analyzed by expression profiling using Affymetrix U133 2plus Human Gene Chips