Stage-related transcriptional changes in HR-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer

Analyzing the expression of cancer-relevant genes with increasing diagnostic stage can provide insight into the changing biology of breast cancer and is therefore clinically useful. Here, we evaluated the transcriptional activity according to stage of breast cancer (American Joint Commission on Cancer, AJCC Stage I to IV) from 1,152 patients with hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative breast cancer.

Samples were prospectively collected fresh for clinical/translational research with transcriptional profiling. Most transcriptional signatures remained consistent across stage categories, while most of the significant changes associated with increasing stage were attributed to endocrine escape, decreasing differentiation, increased complexity of signal transduction, and some metabolic changes. The clinical relevance and implications of these findings are discussed, and the public availability of these expression data from high-quality samples is a resource for researchers.