A 41-gene signature derived from breast cancer stem cells as a predictor of survival

作者：Yin, Zhi Qiang; Liu, Jian Jun; Xu, Ying Chun; Yu, Jian; Ding, Guo Hui; Yang, Feng; Tang, Lei; Liu, Bao Hong; Ma, Yue; Xia, Yu Wei; Lin, Xiao Lin; Wang, Hong Xia^*

来源：Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, 2014, 33(1): 49.

DOI：10.1186/1756-9966-33-49

• Prognostic signature
• Breast cancer
• Stem cell

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of a 41-gene signature derived from breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) to estimate the risk of metastasis and survival in breast cancer patients.
Methods: The centroid expression of the 41-gene signature derived from BCSCs was applied as the threshold to classify patients into two separate groups-patients with high expression (high-EL) of the prognostic signature and patients with low expression (low-EL). The predictive ability of the 41-gene signature was evaluated by Cox regression model and was compared against other popular tests, such as Oncotype and MammaPrint.
Results: Our results showed that the 41-gene prognostic signature was significantly associated with age (P = .0351) and ER status (P = .0095). The analysis indicated that patients in the high-EL group had a worse prognosis than those in the low-EL group in terms of both overall survival (OS: HR, 2.05, P = .009) and distant metastasis free survival (DMFS: HR, 2.24, P = .002). Additionally, the 41-gene signature was an independent risk factor and separates patients based on estrogen receptor status. While comparable to Oncotype, the analysis demonstrated that the 41-gene signature had a better prognostic value in predicting DMFS and OS than AOL, NPI, St. Gallen, Veridex, and MammaPrint.
Conclusions: This study confirms the utility of the 41-gene signature and adds to the growing evidence that gene expression signatures of BCSCs have clinical potential to predict patient outcome and aid in treatment choice.

• 出版日期2014-6-6
• 单位上海生物信息技术研究中心; 山东交通学院