Exploring circulating micro‐RNA in the neoadjuvant treatment of breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy amongst females worldwide. In recent years the management of this disease has transformed considerably, including the administration of chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant setting. Aside from increasing rates of breast conserving surgery and enabling surgery via tumour burden reduction, use of chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant setting allows monitoring of in vivo tumour response to chemotherapeutics. Currently, there is no effective means of identifying chemotherapeutic responders from non‐responders. Whilst some patients achieve complete pathological response (pCR) to chemotherapy, a good prognostic index, a proportion of patients derive little or no benefit, being exposed to the deleterious effects of systemic treatment without any knowledge of whether they will receive benefit. The identification of predictive and prognostic biomarkers could confer multiple benefits in this setting, specifically the individualization of breast cancer management and more effective administration of chemotherapeutics. In addition, biomarkers could potentially expedite the identification of novel chemotherapeutic agents or increase their efficacy. Micro‐RNAs (miRNAs) are small non‐coding RNA molecules. With their tissue‐specific expression, correlation with clinicopathological prognostic indices and known dysregulation in breast cancer, miRNAs have quickly become an important avenue in the search for novel breast cancer biomarkers. We provide a brief history of breast cancer chemotherapeutics and explore the emerging field of circulating (blood‐borne) miRNAs as breast cancer biomarkers for the neoadjuvant treatment of breast cancer. Established molecular markers of breast cancer are outlined, while the potential role of circulating miRNAs as chemotherapeutic response predictors, prognosticators or potential therapeutic targets is discussed.

Serum N‐glycome alterations in breast cancer during multimodal treatment and follow‐up

“…This indicates that the serum N ‐glycome reflects the body's response to surgery as well as to the removal of the tumour. Glycosylation changes in serum N ‐glycome could therefore serve as biomarker for response to treatment, particularly neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery (Casey et al ., ).…”

“…Glycosylation changes in serum N-glycome could therefore serve as biomarker for response to treatment, particularly neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery (Casey et al, 2016).…”

Circulating microRNAs in patients with hormone receptor‐positive, metastatic breast cancer treated with dovitinib

“…Here we report that distinctly altered patterns of circulating miR expression are observed in patients after treatment with dovitinib. Plasma miRs have a major potential as cancer biomarkers [32][33][34]. MiRs are deregulated as a result of the uncontrolled cell proliferation, stromal remodeling and immune regulation that define cancer and are stably exported into the circulation.…”

Changes of Three kinds of miRNAs, MALAT1 and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway Protein Levels in Her-2 Positive Breast Cancer in neoadjuvant chemotherapy and their relationship with prognosis- -A small sample study report

“…Several studies have shown that some miRNAs are associated with prognosis in Her-2 positive BC [13,14] . The circulating miRNAs can be as chemotherapeutic response predictors, prognosticators or potential therapeutic targets [15] . Gu X et al found that the relative expression level of miR-451 was lower in the neoadjuvant chemotherapy resistant BC patients, suggesting the circulating miR-451 may have a functional significance in predicting the resistance to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in BC patients [16] .…”