SMARCA2 (BRM) expression is associated with enhanced survival in patients with breast cancer.

Abstract

SMARCA2, also known as Brahma (BRM) (1) is a component of the mammalian switch sucrose non-fermentable (SWI/SNF) chromatin remodeling complex that interacts with nucleosomes, the proteins that bind DNA, to alter the confirmation of the genetic code and thereby regulate transcription (2, 3). Subunits of the SWI/SNF complex are recurrently mutated in a wide variety of cancers (4-6). We mined published tumor transcriptome data with paired survival data to discover genes associated with survival outcomes in breast cancer (7, 8). We found that SMARCA2 was among the genes most differentially expressed in both primary and metastatic tumor tissues when comparing tumor transcriptomes based on survival at 24 months. SMARCA2 expression was significantly higher in patients surviving greater than 24 months, suggesting that increased SMARCA2 expression confers a survival benefit to patients with metastatic and localized breast cancer.