Paradoxical roles for FOXA1 in anti-estrogen resistance and as a luminal differentiation factor in breast cancer

The authors of a recent paper published in Nature [Ross-Innes et al. (1)], examined the correlation between the pattern of estrogen receptor-α (ERα) chromatin binding in breast cancers that were resistant to endocrine therapy compared with patients that had a good outcome. The sample populations were derived from eight ER+/progesterone receptor (PR)+/HER2- breast cancers that were clinically confirmed as a good prognosis and seven primary breast cancers from patients with a confirmed poor outcome that were either ER+/PR-/HER2- or ER+/PR+/HER2+.