Expression data from human PBMCs from breast cancer patients and controls

We analyzed gene expression in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from breast cancer patients, patients with benign breast abnormalities, healthy cancer-free individuals as well as patients with other types of cancer (gastrointestinal and brain cancers). Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples were collected from women with a suspect initial mammogram prior to undergoing a diagnostic biopsy procedure to determine whether the detected abnormality was benign or malignant. In total, we collected blood from 57 women with a diagnosis of breast cancer and 37 with a benign diagnosis. We also collected blood from 31 women with normal initial mammograms as negative controls and 15 breast cancer patients following surgery. All breast cancer patient samples were collected at the Duke University Medical Center (DUMC) under an institutional review board (IRB)-approved protocol (Duke eIRB#12025) after obtaining informed consent and were provided by Dr. Jeffrey Marks. PBMC samples from patients with various gastrointestinal cancers (n=15) were colelcted and stored at DUMC under IRB-approved protocols (Duke eIRB#12010 and 12025) and were provided by Dr. Jeffrey Marks. Peripheral blood leukocyte samples from patients with brain tumors (n=7) were provided by Dr. John Sampson and were collected by leukapheresis under Duke eIRB#00003877 and #00009403.