Analysis of microdissected invasive lobular and ductal breast carcinomas in relation to normal ductal and lobular cells

The aim of our study was to identify gene expression profiles of ductal and lobular carcinomas in relation to normal ductal and lobular cells. We examined ten mastectomy specimens from postmenopausal breast cancer patients. Ductal and lobular tumor and normal cells were microdissected from cryosections. Fifty nanograms of total RNA were amplified and labeled by PCR and in vitro transcription. GCOS pairwise comparison algorithm and rank products have identified multiple genes that are differentially expressed in comparisons between ductal and lobular tumor and normal cell types. The results suggest that these genes are involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition, TGFbeta and Wnt signaling. These changes are present in both tumor types but appear to be more prominent in lobular carcinomas. Keywords: cell type comparison Ten surgical specimens obtained by mastectomy from postmenopausal patients with invasive ductal (IDC) and lobular breast (ILC) carcinomas were investigated. Of these, 5 were IDCs and 5 were ILCs. Tumor and normal tissues from the same mammary gland were identified by an experienced pathologist, snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80ºC for further analysis. Microdissection, RNA isolation, amplification, labeling and microarray analysis are described in sample definitions. Samples from particular cell types (normal ductal, normal lobular, tumor ductal, tumor lobular - 10, 10, 5, 5 samples, respectively) were considered as biological replicates and were compared in between.