{"entity":{"id":"paper-perou-molecular-portraits-breast-tumours-nature-2000","kind":"paper","name":"Molecular portraits of human breast tumours","aka":[],"tldr":"The 2000 study that read the activity of 8,102 genes in 65 breast tumours and found the tumours fell into distinct groups, one of them the basal-like group that most triple-negative cancers belong to.","summary":"Perou, Sørlie, Eisen, van de Rijn and colleagues characterised gene expression in 65 surgical specimens from 42 individuals using complementary DNA microarrays representing 8,102 human genes. Each tumour had a distinctive molecular portrait; 20 tumours sampled before and after 16 weeks of doxorubicin, and two paired with a lymph node metastasis, showed that two samples from the same person were almost always more alike than either was to any other tumour. Sets of co-expressed genes tracked specific features of the tumours, and the tumours could be classified into subtypes distinguished by pervasive differences in expression.","asOf":"2026-09-24","links":[{"label":"Nature 2000","url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/35021093"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10963602/"}],"tags":["tnbc-evidence"],"related":["paper-sorlie-breast-carcinoma-subclasses-pnas-2001","paper-sorlie-repeated-observation-subtypes-brca1-basal-pnas-2003"],"cancers":["tnbc","breast-hr-positive","breast-her2-positive"],"sections":[],"technologies":["rna-seq"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["unc-lineberger"],"pathways":[],"terms":["pam50"],"trials":[],"people":["charles-perou"],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":["nature"],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"Nature","year":2000,"doi":"10.1038/35021093","pmid":"10963602","authors":"Perou CM, Sørlie T, Eisen MB, et al.","paperType":"basic","findings":["65 tumours from 42 individuals profiled on 8,102-gene microarrays; paired samples from one person clustered together.","Tumours classified into subtypes by pervasive differences in gene expression, including a basal epithelial-like group."],"whatItMeans":"The origin of the intrinsic subtypes and of the word basal-like; triple-negative breast cancer is the clinical shadow of this molecular group, though the two overlap imperfectly.","caveats":["Small sample; subtype robustness was shown in the follow-up papers of 2001 and 2003.","Basal-like and triple-negative are not synonyms: about a fifth of triple-negative tumours are not basal-like and vice versa."],"changedPractice":true,"participants":42},"route":"/key-papers/paper-perou-molecular-portraits-breast-tumours-nature-2000/","neighbours":{"paper":[{"id":"paper-sorlie-breast-carcinoma-subclasses-pnas-2001","kind":"paper","name":"Gene expression patterns of breast carcinomas distinguish tumor subclasses with clinical implications","route":"/key-papers/paper-sorlie-breast-carcinoma-subclasses-pnas-2001/"},{"id":"paper-sorlie-repeated-observation-subtypes-brca1-basal-pnas-2003","kind":"paper","name":"Repeated observation of breast tumor subtypes in independent gene expression data sets","route":"/key-papers/paper-sorlie-repeated-observation-subtypes-brca1-basal-pnas-2003/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"breast-her2-positive","kind":"cancer","name":"HER2-positive breast cancer","route":"/cancers/breast-her2-positive/"},{"id":"breast-hr-positive","kind":"cancer","name":"HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer","route":"/cancers/breast-hr-positive/"},{"id":"tnbc","kind":"cancer","name":"Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)","route":"/cancers/tnbc/"}],"technology":[{"id":"rna-seq","kind":"technology","name":"RNA sequencing & expression profiling","route":"/technologies/rna-seq/"}],"institution":[{"id":"unc-lineberger","kind":"institution","name":"UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/unc-lineberger/"}],"term":[{"id":"pam50","kind":"term","name":"PAM50 / intrinsic subtypes","route":"/terms/pam50/"}],"person":[{"id":"charles-perou","kind":"person","name":"Charles M. Perou","route":"/people/charles-perou/"}],"journal":[{"id":"nature","kind":"journal","name":"Nature","route":"/journals/nature/"}],"roadmap":[{"id":"tnbc-roadmap","kind":"roadmap","name":"Triple-negative breast cancer roadmap: from a remainder defined by three negative tests to immunotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates and the residual disease problem","route":"/roadmaps/tnbc-roadmap/"}]}}