Whole transcriptome analysis of breast tissues prior to breast cancer diagnosis [RNA-seq]

The Susan G. Komen Tissue Bank at Indiana University Simon Cancer Center (KTB) is the only repository of normal breast tissues donated by healthy women. As expected, a relatively small number of KTB donors (˜5%) diagnosed with breast cancer a few years post-donation. The specimens originally donated by these women (here labeled “susceptible normal tissue”) provide a window into the earliest phases of breast cancer development. Here, we investigated the transcriptomic changes in the histologically normal breast tissues donated by women 2-8 years prior to their diagnosis of breast cancer (mostly DCIS), as compared with breasts from age-matched healthy subjects. Overall design: Fresh frozen breast tissues were obtained from the KTB and processed for DNA and RNA extraction. The DNA was then submitted to the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics at IU Bloomington for whole transcriptome analysis. The study cohort includes 15 pre-diagnosis or suscpetible breast tissues and 15 breast tissue cores donated by age-matched healthy donors.