Breast Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Breast Cancer, including details on symptoms, genetics, screening, treatment, information.

Bisphenol A induces a profile of tumor aggressiveness in high-risk cells from breast cancer patients.

Dairkee SH, Seok J, Champion S, Sayeed A, Mindrinos M, Xiao W, Davis RW, Goodson WH

California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. dairkes@cpmcri.org

Breast cancer outcome is highly variable. Whether inadvertent exposure to environmental xenobiotics evokes a biological response promoting cancer aggressiveness and a higher probability of tumor recurrence remains unknown. To determine specific molecular alterations which arise in high-risk breast tissue in the presence of the ubiquitous xenoestrogen, bisphenol A (BPA), we used nonmalignant random periareolar fine-needle aspirates in a novel functional assay. Early events induced by BPA in epithelial-stromal cocultures derived from the contralateral tissue of patients with breast cancer included gene expression patterns which facilitate apoptosis evasion, endurance of microenvironmental stress, and cell cycle deregulation without a detectable increase in cell numbers. This BPA response profile was significantly associated with breast tumors characterized by high histologic grade (P < 0.001) and large tumor size (P = 0.002), resulting in decreased recurrence-free patient survival (P < 0.001). Our assays show a biological "fingerprint" of probable prior exposure to endocrine-disrupting agents, and suggest a scenario in which their presence in the microenvironmental milieu of high-risk breast tissue could play a deterministic role in establishing and maintaining tumor aggressiveness and poor patient outcome.

Published 2 April 2008 in Cancer Res, 68(7): 2076-80.
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