Prominent oncogenic roles of EVI1 in breast carcinoma

Overexpression of the Ecotropic viral integration site 1 (EVI1) gene typically associates with aggressive forms of leukemia. Aberrant EVI1 expression is also detected in breast carcinoma but its role in this tumor type is largely unknown. In order to analyze its effects in breast cancer, shRNA knockdown was performed on MDA-MB-231 cells and gene expression compared in EVI1 knockdown versus corresponding control shRNA treated cells. MDA-MB-231 cells were lentivirally transduced with two independent shRNA construct targeting EVI1 expression and respectively two corresponding non-coding shRNA constructs as control. Cells were transduced and analyzed independently in three biological experiments.