Molecular biomarkers of breast carcinoma and follow-up-dependent changes of thier relevance

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease and its consequent complexity is a major challenge for biologists and physicians. The presence of alterations in molecular mechanisms affecting tumor growth, cell-cycle kinetics, angiogenesis, invasiveness and metastatic potential limits the assessment of prognostic and predictive values of classical biomarkers. The major challenge for experimental and clinical investigators lies in increasing their knowledge and trying to reduce the intrinsic biological complexity of the breast cancer in order to improve disease outcome. Therefore, reduction of biological heterogeneity and accurate functional classification of carcinomas still represent topics in breast cancer research. The relevance of research in this Project is based on the determination of molecular biomarkers of the most important alterations in breast cancer progression by using methods that allow quantitative and reproducible results. Long-term follow-up of natural and clinical course of disease allows us to investigate the time-dependence of the prognostic and predictive molecular biomarkers in relation to disease outcome. In that context our plan is to assess the molecular biomarkers related to the intrinsic and acquired aggressiveness in the natural course as well as the molecular biomarkers related to intrinsic and acquired resistance in the clinical course of breast cancer within the early and late development of distant metastases.