Expression Profiles of Breast Tumors from Singapore and Europe

To facilitate a better understanding of the molecular heterogeneity of breast cancer and to uncover gene-survival associations that segregate with distinct molecular subtypes, we recently compiled a meta-analytical database of over 2,000 human breast tumor expression profiles variously annotated for clinical and pathological variables and derived from various institutions worldwide. This database was utilized for the breast tumor study cited below: Nagalla, et. al., Genome Biology, 2013. While the majority of the tumor expression profiles included in this database derived from publicly accessible microarray repositories, a number of the samples had not been previously published. Here, we describe the origin of these samples and provide their associated clinical and pathological annotations with the hope that other investigators will be able to utilize these data in their own research. Breast tumor samples derived from the Institut Jules Bordet (IJB; Belgium), John Radcliffe Hospital (JRH; Oxford) and the National University Hospital (NUH, Singapore) were profiled on the Affymetrix U133A platform. The number of tumors profiled (n) and the corresponding dates of tumor diagnosis are as follows. IJB: n=41, 1994-2001; JRH: n=8, 1990-1993; and NUH: n=100, 2000-2002.