The Human Cell Surfaceome of Breast Tumors

INTRODUCTION Cell surface proteins are ideal targets for cancer therapy and diagnosis. We have identified a set of more than 3700 genes that code for transmembrane proteins believed to be at human cell surface. METHODS We used a high-throuput qPCR system for the analysis of 573 cell surface protein-coding genes in 12 primary breast tumors, 8 breast cell lines, and 21 normal human tissues including breast. To better understand the role of these genes in breast tumors, we used a series of bioinformatics strategies to integrates different type, of the datasets, such as KEGG, protein-protein interaction databases, ONCOMINE, and data from, literature. RESULTS We found that at least 77 genes are overexpressed in breast primary tumors while at least 2 of them have also a restricted expression pattern in normal tissues. We found common signaling pathways that may be regulated in breast tumors through the overexpression of these cell surface protein-coding genes. Furthermore, a comparison was made between the genes found in this report and other genes associated with features clinically relevant for breast tumorigenesis. CONCLUSIONS The expression profiling generated in this study, together with an integrative bioinformatics analysis, allowed us to identify putative targets for breast tumors.