Statin-induced transcriptional changes in breast cancer

Global gene expression profiling was performed on [1] paired tumor biopsies collected before and after 2 weeks of statin treatment [2] a collection of breast cancer cells lines following 48hrs of atorvastatin treatment with the aim of detecting statin induced transcriptional changes in breast cancer cells in-vitro. In this phase II clinical study using the “window-of-opportunity” design, in which the treatment-free window between a cancer diagnosis and surgical tumor resection is used to study the biological effects of a certain drug, atorvastatin, a lipophilic statin, was prescribed to patients with primary breast cancer for two weeks pre-operatively. Tumor samples subjected to whole genome transcriptional profiling were collected before patients started treatment and after completing treatment. In addition, breast cancer cell lines were exposed to atorvastatin treatment for 48 hrs after which total RNA was extracted and subjected to whole genome transcriptional profiling. Vehicle (DMSO) treated samples were included as controls. Three biological replicates were included per sample (condition).