Comparison of BRCA1 Expression between Triple-Negative and Luminal Breast Tumors

Previous studies have suggested that BRCA1 dysregulation has been shown to have a role in triple-negative phenotypic manifestation. However, differences of BRCA1 expression, as a tumor suppressor gene, have rarely been investigated between luminal and triple-negative breast tumors. Therefore, the present study attempted to compare the BRCA1 expression in triple-negative with luminal breast tumors and its association with the clinicopathologic characteristics of patients.
BRCA1 expression was evaluated by real-time PCR in 26 triple-negative and 27 luminal breast tumors.
The results revealed that there is a high frequency of BRCA1 underexpression in both triple-negative and luminal breast tumors. The BRCA1 underexpression was related to young age at diagnosis, lymph node involvement, and grade ІІІ tumors.
The observations suggest that decreased BRCA1 expression, regardless of tumor subtype, has a general role in breast malignancy and associated with poor prognostic features in breast tumors.