A DREAM complex gene expression program involving E2F4, E2F6, SIN3A and NFYB in human breast cancer and in murine breast cancers arising from genetic modeling of transformation induced by viral infection.
We recently reported that nearly half of the most differentially expressed genes in the the breast tumors of mice resulting from genetic modeling of integration events or oncogene expression occurring during viral infection by viruses including the murine mammary tumor virus, SV40 and polyomavirus are also significantly differentially expressed in human breast cancer, the majority of which are of unknown etiology (1, 2). Here we present evidence of the existence of a gene expression program operating through the DREAM complex, E2F transcription factors E2F4 and E2F6, as well as NFYB and SIN3A, both in the tumors of mice resulting from genetic modeling of viral infection and in the primary tumors of human patients with breast cancer through blind analysis of published whole transcriptome data (3-5). The similarity between human breast cancer and cancers induced by genetic engineering of integration events and oncogene expression in mice is not limited to differential expression of single genes in isolation, nor multiple numbers of single genes; a centrally regulated, major transcriptional network is perturbed in a mirrored fashion in human breast cancer and virally-induced breast cancers in mice.