Abstract 1536: In silico discovery of target genes and pathways associated with breast cancer brain and bone metastases

Metastasis is the primary cause of death from breast cancer. Bone and brain are the most frequent sites for breast cancer metastasis. The aim of this study was to explore candidate genes associated with breast cancer bone and brain metastases. We compared the gene expression profiles of bone and brain metastases with primary tumors by compiling 55 microarray data sets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO: GSE12763, primary tumor n = 30; GSE14017, bone metastasis n = 10, brain metastasis n = 15). A total of 160 differentially expressed genes were screened with a two-fold change, among which 109 genes were up-regulated and 51 genes were down-regulated in bone metastasis. Pathway analysis showed these differentially expressed genes were significantly related to bone development and cell adhesion (p