Major chromosomal breakpoint intervals in breast cancer co-localize with differentially methylated regions.
Solid tumors exhibit chromosomal rearrangements resulting in gain or loss of multiple chromosomal loci (copy number variation, or CNV), and translocations that occasionally result in the creation of novel chimeric genes. In the case of breast cancer, although most individual tumors each have unique CNV landscape, the breakpoints, as measured over large datasets, appear to be non-randomly distribut