Quantitative analysis of chromosomal CGH in human breast tumors associatescopy number abnormalities with p53 status and patient survival

We present a general method for rigorously identifying correlations between variations in large-scale molecular profiles and outcomes and apply it to chromosomal comparative genomic hybridization data from a set of 52 breast tumors. We identify two loci where copy number abnormalities are correlated with poor survival outcome (gain at 8q24 and loss at 9q13), We also identi fy a relationship between abnormalities at two loci and the mutational stat us of p53, Gain at 8q24 and loss at 5q15-5q21 are linked with mutant p53, T he 9q and 5q losses suggest the possibility of gene products involved in br east cancer progression. The analytical techniques are general and also are applicable to the analysis of array-based expression data.