Abstract C54: High Caveolin-1 Expression in a Cohort of African American Women with Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Abstract In the U.S., the incidence rates of breast cancer (BC) among Caucasian (CA) women are lower than those of African American (AA), however, AA women have a significantly higher mortality rate. AA women often present at a younger age, with later stage and higher grade tumors. In fact, AA women are 3x more likely to be diagnosed with the more aggressive molecular subtype, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), than CA women. Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors may be contributory; however, it is imperative that we investigate the underlying molecular biology that may be the cause of health disparities between AA and CA with TNBC. In this study, gene expression profiling, using the Almac BC DSA Research Tool, was performed on archived FFPE samples, obtained from CA and AA women diagnosed with early stage (Node 0) TNBC. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering revealed a pattern of differential gene expression in the AA cohort compared to CA. Using the TNBC type: A Subtyping Tool for TNBC, we found a distinct distribution pattern of TNBC molecular subtypes in the AA cohort, which was very different than the CA cohort; Basal-like (14%), Immunomodulatory (43%) and Mesenchymal (43%). Gene expression analyses, comparing the AA and CA cohort (fold change > 2.0, p-value Citation Format: Julie E. Getz, Davyd B. Teoh, Sara Nasser, Christophe R. Legendre, Waibhav Tembe, Venkata Yellapantula, Mary Ellen Ahearn, Carmen R. Gomez, Merce Jorda, Shuk Mei Wong, Mark D. Pegram, John D. Carpten, Lisa L. Baumbach-Reardon. High caveolin-1 expression in a cohort of African American women with triple-negative breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr C54.