Serum microRNA-21 expression as a prognostic and therapeutic biomarker for breast cancer patients

Abstract

MiRNA-21 is recognized as the main active candidate and high expression in many solid tumors consequential cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and closely related to metastasis of disease. The study aimed to evaluate the serum miRNA-21 expression and therapy outcome in breast cancer patients and cell lines. Seventy-five histopathologically confirmed newly diagnosed breast cancer patients were included in the study; before and after therapy, patient's blood sample were collected and analyzed for serum microRNA-21 expression by quantitative real-time PCR. In patients, 8.9 mean fold increased microRNA-21 expression was observed compared to controls. Increased expression was found to be associated with advanced stage (11.72-fold), lymph node involvement (11.12-fold), and distant metastases (20.17-fold). After treatment significant decrease in miRNA-21 expression was observed and found to be significant (p < 0.0001). Patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy had significant impact on miRNA-21 suppression and found to be significantly associated with different clinicopathological features of patients. Increased miRNA-21 expression was also found to be significantly associated with poor survival of breast cancer patients (p = 0.002). MicroRNA-21 expression could be used as promising predictive indicators for breast cancer prognosis. MicroRNA-21 over-expression was associated with response to neoadjuvant therapy and may perhaps be considered as primary treatment choice.

High‐level expression of ARID1A predicts a favourable outcome in triple‐negative breast cancer patients receiving paclitaxel‐based chemotherapy

“…However, the exact molecular mechanism of how loss of ARID1A expression causes paclitaxel resistant remains unclear. On the other hand, further studies are still needed to explore the role of VMP1/MIR21 in the mechanism for the paclitaxel resistance of TNBCs as miR‐21 has been shown to be a useful biomarker to predict neoadjuvant therapeutic response in breast cancer patients …”

<p>Associations Between miRNAs and Two Different Cancers: Breast and Colon</p>

“…Our results, together with the findings of others, suggest that circulating miR-21 levels, as a novel minimally invasive biomarker, can predict poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer, and its clinical application thus warrants further investigation. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Knudsen et al 36 asserted that, in the early stages of the normal-adenoma-adenocarcinoma sequence, the expression levels of miR-17, miR-21, and miR-145 are altered. In our study, when colon cancer cells were compared with control samples, miR-21 expression was found to be upregulated 2.68-fold.…”

<p>Predictors of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Response in Breast Cancer: A Review</p>

“…57 The serum miR-21 together with miR-155 which were poor prognostic predictors, endured obvious suppressions by NAC therapy especially in TNBC, thus being potential biomarkers for outcomes of patients with NAC. 58,59 Besides, miR-145-5p was reported to discriminate between pCR and non-pCR TNBC patients with cisplatin/doxorubicin-based NAC, and miR-145-5p was proven to impair cell proliferation partly by targeting TGFβR2. 60 Besides, some researches explored the specific function of circulating tumor DNAs in TNBC patients with residual tumors after NAC.…”