BRCA1 and breast cancer: Breast cancers due to germline mutations or altered expression of the BRCA1 gene associate with an aggressive clinical course and frequently exhibit a "triple-negative" phenotype, i.e. lack of expression of the estrogen and progesterone hormone receptors and lack of overexpression of the HER2/NEU oncogene, thereby rendering them relatively insensitive to hormonal manipulation and targeted HER2 therapy, respectively.