Breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy is associated with enrichment of non-silent mutations, mismatch repair deficiency signature and mucin mutations

Abstract

Breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy (BCP) is a rare and highly challenging disease. To investigate the impact of pregnancy on the biology of breast cancer, we conducted a comparative analysis of a cohort of BCP patients and non-pregnant control patients by integrating gene expression, copy number alterations and whole genome sequencing data. We showed that BCP exhibit unique molecular characteristics including an enrichment of non-silent mutations, a higher frequency of mutations in mucin gene family and an enrichment of mismatch repair deficiency mutational signature. This provides important insights into the biology of BCP and suggests that these features may be implicated in promoting tumor progression during pregnancy. In addition, it provides an unprecedented resource for further understanding the biology of breast cancer in young women and how pregnancy could modulate tumor biology. © 2018, The Author(s).