Abstract 4862: Autocrine secreted IL-6 and IL-8 play critical and non-redundant roles in basal-like breast cancer cell transformation and growth in vitro and in vivo

Proceedings: AACR 103rd Annual Meeting 2012‐‐ Mar 31‐Apr 4, 2012; Chicago, IL Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that can be subdivided into distinct types based upon the molecular classification of oncogenic driver mutations. While most breast cancers are driven by estrogen-mediated signaling (ER+) or HER2 expression (HER2+), the cellular signals that mediate transformation and growth of ER-HER2- (or basal-type) breast cancers are incompletely understood. To identify novel targets for the treatment of this aggressive and treatment-refractory disease, we investigated inflammatory signaling in these cancers, as inflammatory pathways have proven critical for oncogenic transformation of multiple cancers. In our primary analysis, we analyzed ER- and ER+ primary patient tumors (N=106, Baylor College of Medicine Tumor Bank) to determine inflammatory genes (in the KEGG Cytokine-Cytokine Receptor set, N=226) that are differentially expressed (FDR