Breast Cancer Screening, Detection and Classification - Research Paper Example

Collagen alpha 1 and 2 families had the most number of tryptic peptides, while several of the other proteins showed only one tryptic peptide each. Most of the proteins identified have been reported to be involved in tumor progression and metastasis. Their roles were in chromatin modeling, transcriptional and translational regulation. Results of the study showed that deploying MALDI-IMS-MS on breast cancer tissue microarray was successful in identifying proteins involved in cancer progression, and have potential use in the molecular and proteome-based classification of breast cancer types.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, with 1.4 million new cases in 2008 alone. Currently, it is the most common cancer in developing and developed regions worldwide. One out of nine women has a chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime. In the United Kingdom alone, 45,947 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 while 12,392 women died from the disease in 2006 (NICE CG80 2009). Although breast cancer has a higher survival rate, ranking as fifth cause of death from cancer worldwide, it is still the leading cause (almost equal to lung cancer) of cancer deaths in women (GLOBOCAN, 2008).

Breast cancer develops from the combination of lifestyle, environment, and genetic effects. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are gene mutations that confer susceptibility to breast cancer. These genes encode for proteins that are involved in many functions the nucleus, including transcription and DNA repair. BRCA was shown to be involved in chromatin unfolding, and that cancer-causing mutations in BRCA1 could either enhance or abolish chromatin unfolding (Ye, et al., 2001). A family history of breast cancer is a strong risk factor for developing the disease, although this risk factor varies considerably with the type of genetic mutation involved (NICECG14 2004).