Germline genetic testing with hereditary cancer gene panels can identify women at increased risk of breast cancer. However, those at increased risk of triple-negative (estrogen receptor-negative, ...progesterone receptor-negative, human epidermal growth factor receptor-negative) breast cancer (TNBC) cannot be identified because predisposition genes for TNBC, other than BRCA1, have not been established. The aim of this study was to define the cancer panel genes associated with increased risk of TNBC.
Multigene panel testing for 21 genes in 8753 TNBC patients was performed by a clinical testing laboratory, and testing for 17 genes in 2148 patients was conducted by a Triple Negative Breast Cancer Consortium (TNBCC) of research studies. Associations between deleterious mutations in cancer predisposition genes and TNBC were evaluated using results from TNBC patients and reference controls.
Germline pathogenic variants in BARD1, BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, and RAD51D were associated with high risk (odds ratio > 5.0) of TNBC and greater than 20% lifetime risk for overall breast cancer among Caucasians. Pathogenic variants in BRIP1, RAD51C, and TP53 were associated with moderate risk (odds ratio > 2) of TNBC. Similar trends were observed for the African American population. Pathogenic variants in these TNBC genes were detected in 12.0% (3.7% non-BRCA1/2) of all participants.
Multigene hereditary cancer panel testing can identify women with elevated risk of TNBC due to mutations in BARD1, BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, and RAD51D. These women can potentially benefit from improved screening, risk management, and cancer prevention strategies. Patients with mutations may also benefit from specific targeted therapeutic strategies.
Recent advances in DNA sequencing have led to the development of breast cancer susceptibility gene panels for germline genetic testing of patients. We assessed the frequency of mutations in 17 ...predisposition genes, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, in a large cohort of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) unselected for family history of breast or ovarian cancer to determine the utility of germline genetic testing for those with TNBC.
Patients with TNBC (N = 1,824) unselected for family history of breast or ovarian cancer were recruited through 12 studies, and germline DNA was sequenced to identify mutations.
Deleterious mutations were identified in 14.6% of all patients. Of these, 11.2% had mutations in the BRCA1 (8.5%) and BRCA2 (2.7%) genes. Deleterious mutations in 15 other predisposition genes were detected in 3.7% of patients, with the majority observed in genes involved in homologous recombination, including PALB2 (1.2%) and BARD1, RAD51D, RAD51C, and BRIP1 (0.3% to 0.5%). Patients with TNBC with mutations were diagnosed at an earlier age (P < .001) and had higher-grade tumors (P = .01) than those without mutations.
Deleterious mutations in predisposition genes are present at high frequency in patients with TNBC unselected for family history of cancer. Mutation prevalence estimates suggest that patients with TNBC, regardless of age at diagnosis or family history of cancer, should be considered for germline genetic testing of BRCA1 and BRCA2. Although mutations in other predisposition genes are observed among patients with TNBC, better cancer risk estimates are needed before these mutations are used for clinical risk assessment in relatives.
Background
Metaplastic breast carcinomas (MpBCs) are rare, aggressive breast cancers. Due to the scant literature of this disease most guidelines do not give recommendation for this entity. The aim ...of the study was to review the clinicopathologic features, treatment, and outcomes of the patients with MpBC treated at our institution.
Material and methods
We searched databases for patients with histologically confirmed MpBC from 2002 to 2016.
Results
A total of 78 patients with MpBC were included in the study. All histological material was reviewed by an experienced breast pathologist. Most tumors were grade 3 (83%) and triple negative (85%). Eighty‐two percent were node negative. Sixty‐four percent received adjuvant chemotherapy. The 5‐year disease free survival was 63% and 5‐year breast cancer specific overall survival was 61%. Tumor size and mixed metaplastic histology were associated with worse outcome in this patient group. One third of the patients (n = 28) had metastatic disease at initial presentation or developed metastases at follow‐up. The lungs were the most common site of first distant recurrence. Half (n = 14) of these patients received palliative chemotherapy. Of those only 6% (n = 2) had partial response and 18% had stable disease as best response to treatment. The median overall survival time with metastatic disease was only 3.4 months.
Conclusion
MpBC is an aggressive type of breast cancer with poor outcome despite low nodal involvement and aggressive local and systemic therapy. Tumor response to palliative systemic chemotherapy remains poor for MpBC patients.
Significance The major portion of hereditary breast cancer still remains unexplained, and many susceptibility loci are yet to be found. Exome sequencing of 24 high-risk familial BRCA1/2 -negative ...breast cancer patients and further genotyping of a large sample set of breast/ovarian cancer cases and controls was used to discover previously unidentified susceptibility alleles and genes. A significant association of a FANCM nonsense mutation with breast cancer, especially triple-negative breast cancer, identifies FANCM as a breast cancer susceptibility gene. Identification of such risk alleles is expected to improve cancer risk assessment for breast cancer patients and families, and may lead to improvements in the prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of cancer.
Inherited predisposition to breast cancer is known to be caused by loss-of-function mutations in BRCA1 , BRCA2 , PALB2 , CHEK2 , and other genes involved in DNA repair. However, most families severely affected by breast cancer do not harbor mutations in any of these genes. In Finland, founder mutations have been observed in each of these genes, suggesting that the Finnish population may be an excellent resource for the identification of other such genes. To this end, we carried out exome sequencing of constitutional genomic DNA from 24 breast cancer patients from 11 Finnish breast cancer families. From all rare damaging variants, 22 variants in 21 DNA repair genes were genotyped in 3,166 breast cancer patients, 569 ovarian cancer patients, and 2,090 controls, all from the Helsinki or Tampere regions of Finland. In Fanconi anemia complementation gene M ( FANCM ), nonsense mutation c.5101C>T (p.Q1701X) was significantly more frequent among breast cancer patients than among controls odds ratio (OR) = 1.86, 95% CI = 1.26–2.75; P = 0.0018, with particular enrichment among patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC; OR = 3.56, 95% CI = 1.81–6.98, P = 0.0002). In the Helsinki and Tampere regions, respectively, carrier frequencies of FANCM p.Q1701X were 2.9% and 4.0% of breast cancer patients, 5.6% and 6.6% of TNBC patients, 2.2% of ovarian cancer patients (from Helsinki), and 1.4% and 2.5% of controls. These findings identify FANCM as a breast cancer susceptibility gene, mutations in which confer a particularly strong predisposition for TNBC.
Immunohistochemical markers are often used to classify breast cancer into subtypes that are biologically distinct and behave differently. The aim of this study was to estimate mortality for patients ...with the major subtypes of breast cancer as classified using five immunohistochemical markers, to investigate patterns of mortality over time, and to test for heterogeneity by subtype.
We pooled data from more than 10,000 cases of invasive breast cancer from 12 studies that had collected information on hormone receptor status, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) status, and at least one basal marker (cytokeratin CK5/6 or epidermal growth factor receptor EGFR) together with survival time data. Tumours were classified as luminal and nonluminal tumours according to hormone receptor expression. These two groups were further subdivided according to expression of HER2, and finally, the luminal and nonluminal HER2-negative tumours were categorised according to expression of basal markers. Changes in mortality rates over time differed by subtype. In women with luminal HER2-negative subtypes, mortality rates were constant over time, whereas mortality rates associated with the luminal HER2-positive and nonluminal subtypes tended to peak within 5 y of diagnosis and then decline over time. In the first 5 y after diagnosis the nonluminal tumours were associated with a poorer prognosis, but over longer follow-up times the prognosis was poorer in the luminal subtypes, with the worst prognosis at 15 y being in the luminal HER2-positive tumours. Basal marker expression distinguished the HER2-negative luminal and nonluminal tumours into different subtypes. These patterns were independent of any systemic adjuvant therapy.
The six subtypes of breast cancer defined by expression of five markers show distinct behaviours with important differences in short term and long term prognosis. Application of these markers in the clinical setting could have the potential to improve the targeting of adjuvant chemotherapy to those most likely to benefit. The different patterns of mortality over time also suggest important biological differences between the subtypes that may result in differences in response to specific therapies, and that stratification of breast cancers by clinically relevant subtypes in clinical trials is urgently required.
Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play crucial roles in human physiology, and have been found to be associated with various cancers. Transcribed ultraconserved regions (T-UCRs) are a subgroup of lncRNAs ...conserved in several species, and are often located in cancer-related regions. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and the leading cause of female cancer deaths. We investigated the association of genetic variants in lncRNA and T-UCR regions with breast cancer risk to uncover candidate loci for further analysis. Our focus was on low-penetrance variants that can be discovered in a large dataset. We selected 565 regions of lncRNAs and T-UCRs that are expressed in breast or breast cancer tissue, or show expression correlation to major breast cancer associated genes. We studied the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these regions with breast cancer risk in the 122970 case samples and 105974 controls of the Breast Cancer Association Consortium's genome-wide data, and also by
functional analyses using Integrated Expression Quantitative trait and
prediction of GWAS targets (INQUISIT) and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis. The eQTL analysis was carried out using the METABRIC dataset and analyses from GTEx and ncRNA eQTL databases. We found putative breast cancer risk variants (
< 1 × 10
) targeting the lncRNA
in INQUISIT and eQTL analysis. In addition, putative breast cancer risk associated SNPs (
< 1 × 10
) in the region of two T-UCRs, uc.184 and uc.313, located in protein coding genes
and
, respectively, targeted these genes in INQUISIT and in eQTL analysis. Other non-coding regions containing SNPs with the defined p-value and highly significant false discovery rate (FDR) for breast cancer risk association were discovered that may warrant further studies. These results suggest candidate lncRNA loci for further research on breast cancer risk and the molecular mechanisms.
Recurrent pathogenic variants have been detected in several breast and ovarian cancer (BC/OC) risk genes in the Finnish population. We conducted a gene-panel sequencing and copy number variant (CNV) ...analysis to define a more comprehensive spectrum of pathogenic variants in
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, and
genes in Finnish BC patients. The combined frequency of pathogenic variants in the
genes was 1.8% in 1356 unselected patients, whereas variants in the other genes were detected altogether in 8.3% of 1356 unselected patients and in 12.9% of 699 familial patients. CNVs were detected in 0.3% of both 1137 unselected and 612 familial patients. A few variants covered most of the pathogenic burden in the studied genes. Of the
carriers, 70.8% had 1 of 10 recurrent variants. In the other genes combined, 92.1% of the carrier patients had at least 1 of 11 recurrent variants. In particular,
c.1592delT and
c.1100delC accounted for 88.9% and 82.9%, respectively, of the pathogenic variation in each gene. Our results highlight the importance of founder variants in the BC risk genes in the Finnish population and could be used in the designing of population screening for the risk variants.
Several susceptibility genes have been established for female breast cancer, of which mutations in BRCA1 and especially in BRCA2 are also known risk factors for male breast cancer (MBC). The role of ...other breast cancer genes in MBC is less well understood.
In this study, we have genotyped 68 MBC patients for the known breast or ovarian cancer associated mutations in the Finnish population in CHEK2, PALB2, RAD51C, RAD51D, and FANCM genes.
CHEK2 c.1100delC mutation was found in 4 patients (5.9%), which is significantly more frequent than in the control population (OR: 4.47, 95% CI 1.51-13.18, p = 0.019). Four CHEK2 I157T variants were also detected, but the frequency did not significantly differ from population controls (p = 0.781). No RAD51C, RAD51D, PALB2, or FANCM mutations were found.
These data suggest that the CHEK2 c.1100delC mutation is associated with an increased risk for MBC in the Finnish population.
Germline mutations in the
BRCA1
and
BRCA2
genes cause hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (HBOC). Mutations in these genes are usually inherited, and reports of
de novo BRCA1/2
mutations ...are rare. To date, only one patient with low-level
BRCA1
mutation mosaicism has been published. We report on a breast cancer patient with constitutional somatic mosaicism of a
BRCA2
mutation.
BRCA2
mutation c.9294C>G, p.(Tyr3098Ter) was detected in 20% of reads in DNA extracted from peripheral blood using next-generation sequencing (NGS). The
BRCA2
mutation was subsequently observed at similar levels in normal breast tissue, adipose tissue, normal right fallopian tube tissue and ovaries of the patient, suggesting that this mutation occurred early in embryonic development. This is the first case to report constitutional mosaicism for a
BRCA2
mutation and shows that
BRCA2
mosaicism can underlie early-onset breast cancer. NGS for
BRCA1/2
should be considered for patients whose tumors harbor a
BRCA1/2
mutation and for individuals suggestive of genetic predisposition but without a family history of HBO.
Abstract
The risk of breast cancer associated with
CHEK2:
c.1100delC is 2–threefold but higher in carriers with a family history of breast cancer than without, suggesting that other genetic loci in ...combination with
CHEK2
:c.1100delC confer an increased risk in a polygenic model. Part of the excess familial risk has been associated with common low-penetrance variants. This study aimed to identify genetic loci that modify
CHEK2
:c.1100delC-associated breast cancer risk by searching for candidate risk alleles that are overrepresented in
CHEK2
:c.1100delC carriers with breast cancer compared with controls. We performed whole-exome sequencing in 28 breast cancer cases with germline
CHEK2
:c.1100delC, 28 familial breast cancer cases and 70 controls. Candidate alleles were selected for validation in larger cohorts. One recessive synonymous variant, rs16897117, was suggested, but no overrepresentation of homozygous
CHEK2
:c.1100delC carriers was found in the following validation. Furthermore, 11 non-synonymous candidate alleles were suggested for further testing, but no significant difference in allele frequency could be detected in the validation in
CHEK2
:c.1100delC cases compared with familial breast cancer, sporadic breast cancer and controls. With this method, we found no support for a
CHEK2
:c.1100delC-specific genetic modifier. Further studies of
CHEK2
:c.1100delC genetic modifiers are warranted to improve risk assessment in clinical practice.