Embryonic stem cell gene expression signatures in the canine mammary tumor: a bioinformatics approach

Canine breast cancer was considered as an ideal model of comparative oncology for the human breast cancer, as there is significant overlap between biological and clinical characteristics of the human and canine breast cancer. We attempt to clarify expression profile of the embryonic stem cell (ES) gene signatures in canine breast cancer. Using microarray datasets (GSE22516 and GSE20718), expression of the three major ES gene signatures (modules or gene-sets), including Myc, ESC-like, and PRC modules, was primarily analyzed through Gene-Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) method in tumor and healthy datasets. For confirmation of the primary results, an additional 13 ES gene-sets which were categorized into four groups including ES expressed (ES exp1 and ES exp2), NOS targets (Nanog targets, Oct4 targets, Sox2 targets, NOS targets, and NOS TFs), Polycomb targets (Suz12 targets, Eed targets, H3K27 bound, and PRC2 targets), and Myc targets (Myc targets1, and Myc targets2) were tested in the tumor and healthy datasets. Our results revealed that there is a valuable overlap between canine and human breast cancer ES gene-sets expression profile, where Myc and ESC-like modules were up-regulated and PRC module was down-regulated in metastatic canine mammary gland tumors. Further analysis of the secondary gene-sets indicated overexpression of the ES expressed, NOS targets (Nanog targets, Oct4 targets, Sox2 targets, and NOS targets), and Myc targets and underexpression of the Polycomb targets in metastatic canine breast cancer.