US Patent 9618512 Biomarker for breast cancer

A method for the diagnosis of breast cancer using an anti-LAT1 monoclonal antibody. Among intraductal breast neoplastic lesions, duct carcinoma in situ, which is malignant, expresses LAT1 at a significantly high level, as compared to intraductal breast papilloma, which is benign. An anti-LAT1 monoclonal antibody is useful for the discrimination between these two lesions. Further, LAT1 is expressed at a high level in most of triple negative infiltrating carcinomas, which are negative for all of ER, PgR, and HER2 that are conventional molecular targeting markers for breast cancer. Therefore, LAT1 can be used as a novel molecular targeting marker for the triple negative breast cancer.