Expression of genes involved in DNA repair and cell cycle checkpoint pathways in Triple Negative compared to Luminal A Breast Cancer: a molecular characterization

Purpose Considering the clear emerging role of the DNA repair and the cell cycle checkpoints as predictive, prognostic and therapeutic targets in cancer there is a need to better characterized human tumours to define sub-sets of patients that would benefit of a particular treatment modality. The aim of the present work is to characterize molecularly a cohort of Triple Negative Breast Cancers (TNBC; estrogen receptor negative, progesterone receptor negative, and HER2/neu negative by immunohistochemistry) compared to Luminal A Breast Cancer (LABC; estrogen receptor positive and/or progesterone receptor positive, and HER2/neu negative, ki67 expression < 15% by immunohistochemistry) as regard of gene expression involved in DNA repair pathway (in particular genes involved in nucleotide excision repair, base excision repair, homologous recombination repair and BRCA/Fanconi anemia pathway) and cell cycle checkpoint pathway (CHK1) and their correlation with the clinical-pathological characteristics.