Genomic instability is a hallmark of breast and other solid cancers. Presumably caused by critical telomere reduction, GI is responsible for providing the genetic diversity required in the multi-step progression of the disease. We have used multicolor fluorescence in situ hybridization and 3D image analysis to quantify genomic instability cell-by-cell in thick, intact tissue sections of normal breast epithelium, preneoplastic lesions (usual ductal hyperplasia), ductal carcinona is situ or invasive carcinoma of the breast. Our in situ-cell by cell-analysis of genomic instability shows an important increase of genomic instability in the transition from hyperplasia to in situ carcinoma, followed by a reduction of instability in invasive carcinoma. This pattern suggests that the transition from hyperplasia to in situ carcinoma corresponds to telomere crisis and invasive carcinoma is a consequence of telomerase reactivation afertelomere crisis.

We have developed a new protocol for using Molecular Inversion Probes (MIP) to accurately and specifically measure allele copy number (ACN). The new protocol provides for significant improvements including the reduction of input DNA (from 2?g) by more than 25 fold (to 75ng total genomic DNA), higher overall precision resulting in one order of magnitude lower false positive rate, and greater dynamic range with accurate absolute copy number up to 60 copies.

Background: Genomic DNA copy number aberrations are frequent in solid tumors, although the underlying causes of chromosomal instability in tumors remain obscure. Genes likely to have genomic instability phenotypes when mutated ( e. g. those involved in mitosis, replication, repair, and telomeres) are rarely mutated in chromosomally unstable sporadic tumors, even though such mutations are associated with some heritable cancer prone syndromes. Methods: We applied array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) to the analysis of breast tumors. The variation in the levels of genomic instability amongst tumors prompted us to investigate whether alterations in processes/genes involved in maintenance and/or manipulation of the genome were associated with particular types of genomic instability. Results: We discriminated three breast tumor subtypes based on genomic DNA copy number alterations. The subtypes varied with respect to level of genomic instability. We find that shorter telomeres and altered telomere related gene expression are associated with amplification, implicating telomere attrition as a promoter of this type of aberration in breast cancer. On the other hand, the numbers of chromosomal alterations, particularly low level changes, are associated with altered expression of genes in other functional classes (mitosis, cell cycle, DNA replication and repair). Further, although loss of function instability phenotypes have been demonstrated for many of the genes in model systems, we observed enhanced expression of most genes in tumors, indicating that over expression, rather than deficiency underlies instability. Conclusion: Many of the genes associated with higher frequency of copy number aberrations are direct targets of E2F, supporting the hypothesis that deregulation of the Rb pathway is a major contributor to chromosomal instability in breast tumors. These observations are consistent with failure to find mutations in sporadic tumors in genes that have roles in maintenance or manipulation of the genome.