TOX3 Mutations in Breast Cancer

TOX3 maps to 16q12, a region commonly lost in breast cancers and recently implicated in the risk of developing breast cancer. However, not much is known of the role of TOX3 itself in breast cancer biology. This is the first study to determine the importance of TOX3 mutations in breast cancers. We screened TOX3 for mutations in 133 breast tumours and identified four mutations (three missense, one in-frame deletion of 30 base pairs) in six primary tumours, corresponding to an overall mutation frequency of 4.5%. One potentially deleterious missense mutation in exon 3 (Leu129Phe) was identified in one tumour (genomic DNA and cDNA). Whilst copy number changes of 16q12 are common in breast cancer, our data show that mutations of TOX3 are present at low frequency in tumours. Our results support that TOX3 should be further investigated to elucidate its role in breast cancer biology.