The DNA-binding sites of estrogen receptor α (ERα) show great plasticity under the control of hormones and endocrine therapy. Tamoxifen is a widely applied therapy in breast cancer that affects ERα interactions with coregulators and shifts the DNA-binding signature of ERα upon prolonged exposure in breast cancer. Although tamoxifen inhibits the progression of breast cancer, it increases the risk of endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women. We therefore asked whether the DNA-binding signature of ERα differs between endometrial tumors that arise in the presence or absence of tamoxifen, indicating divergent enhancer activity for tumors that develop in different endocrine milieus. Using ChIP sequencing (ChIP-seq), we compared the ERα profiles of 10 endometrial tumors from tamoxifen users with those of six endometrial tumors from nonusers and integrated these results with the transcriptomic data of 47 endometrial tumors from tamoxifen users and 64 endometrial tumors from nonusers. The ERα-binding sites in tamoxifen-associated endometrial tumors differed from those in the tumors from nonusers and had distinct underlying DNA sequences and divergent enhancer activity as marked by histone 3 containing the acetylated lysine 27 (H3K27ac). Because tamoxifen acts as an agonist in the postmenopausal endometrium, similar to estrogen in the breast, we compared ERα sites in tamoxifen-associated endometrial cancers with publicly available ERα ChIP-seq data in breast tumors and found a striking resemblance in the ERα patterns of the two tissue types. Our study highlights the divergence between endometrial tumors that arise in different hormonal conditions and shows that ERα enhancer use in human cancer differs in the presence of nonphysiological endocrine stimuli. ... Read more

Background: Patients with BRCA1-like tumors correlate with improved response to DNA double-strand break-inducing therapy. A gene expression-based classifier was developed to distinguish between BRCA1-like and non-BRCA1-like tumors. We hypothesized that these tumors may also be more sensitive to PARP inhibitors than standard treatments. Methods: A diagnostic gene expression signature (BRCA1ness) was developed using a centroid model with 128 triple-negative breast cancer samples from the EU FP7 RATHER project. This BRCA1 ness signature was then tested in HER2-negative patients (n= 116) from the I-SPY 2 TRIAL who received an oral PARP inhibitor veliparib in combination with carboplatin (V-C), or standard chemotherapy alone. We assessed the association between BRCA1 ness and pathologic complete response in the V-C and control arms alone using Fisher ’s exact test, and the relative performance between arms (biomarker × treatment interaction, likelihood ratio p< 0.05) using a logistic model and adjusting for hormone receptor status (HR). Results: We developed a gene expression signature to identify BRCA1-like status. In the I-SPY 2 neoadjuvant setting the BRCA1ness signature associated signif icantly with response to V-C (p= 0.03), but not in the control arm (p = 0.45). We identified a significant interaction between BRCA1ness and V-C (p= 0.023) after correcting for HR. Conclusions: A genomic-based BRCA1-like signature was successfully translated to an expression-based signature (BRC1Aness). In the I-SPY 2 neoadjuvant setting, we determined that the BRCA1ness signature is capable of predicting benefit of V-C added to standard chemotherapy compared to standard chemotherapy alone. Trial registration: I-SPY 2 TRIAL beginning December 31, 2009: Neoadjuvant and Personalized Adaptive Novel Agents to Treat Breast Cancer (I-SPY 2), NCT01042379. ... Read more