title: Gene expression profiles of primary breast tumors maintained in distant metastases.
abstract: It has been debated for decades how cancer cells acquire metastatic capability. It is unclear whether metastases are derived from distinct subpopulations of tumor cells within the primary site with higher metastatic potential, or whether they originate from a random fraction of tumor cells. Here we show, by gene expression profiling, that human primary breast tumors are strikingly similar to the distant metastases of the same patient. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering, multidimensional scaling, and permutation testing, as well as the comparison of significantly expressed genes within a pair, reveal their genetic similarity. Our findings suggest that metastatic capability in breast cancer is an inherent feature and is not based on clonal selection.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Experimental Therapy, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, 1066 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. l.vt.veer@nki.nl
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Weigelt
authors.forename: Annuska M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Glas
authors.forename: Lodewyk F A
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Wessels
authors.forename: Anke T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Witteveen
authors.forename: Johannes L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Peterse
authors.forename: Laura J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: van't Veer
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology / Q000556:secondary; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000235:genetics*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology / Q000556:secondary; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D012334:RNA, Neoplasm