Genome-wide gene expression profiling to predict resistance to anthracyclines in breast cancer patients

Validated biomarkers predictive of response/resistance to anthracyclines in breast cancer are currently lacking. The neoadjuvant Trial of Principle (TOP) study, in which patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-negative tumors were treated with anthracycline (epirubicin) monotherapy, was specifically designed to evaluate the predictive value of topoisomerase II-alpha (TOP2A) and develop a gene expression signature to identify those patients who do not benefit from anthracyclines. Here we describe in details the contents and quality controls for the gene expression and clinical data associated with the study published by Desmedt and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2011 (Desmedt et al., 2011). We also provide R code to easily access the data and perform the quality controls and basic analyses relevant to this dataset.