The long non-coding RNA NEAT1 locus is transcribed into two overlapping isoforms, NEAT1_1 and NEAT1_2, of which the latter is essential for the assembly of nuclear paraspeckles. NEAT1 is abnormally expressed in a wide variety of human cancers. Emerging evidence suggests that the two isoforms have distinct functions in gene expression regulation, and recently it was shown that NEAT1_2, but not NEAT1_1, expression predicts poor clinical outcome in cancer. Here, we report that NEAT1_2 expression correlates with HER2-positive breast cancers and high-grade disease. We provide evidence that NEAT1_1 and NEAT1_2 have distinct expression pattern among different intrinsic breast cancer subtypes. Finally, we show that NEAT1_2 expression and paraspeckle formation increase upon lactation in humans, confirming what has previously been demonstrated in mice. The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) NEAT1 (Nuclear Paraspeckle Assembly Transcript 1) has recently gained considerable attention as it is abnormally expressed in human diseases, including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. The NEAT1 gene is transcribed into two isoforms, NEAT1_1 of 3.7 kb and NEAT1_2 of 22.3 kb, where NEAT1_1 completely overlaps with the 5′ end of NEAT1_2 1. NEAT1_2 is essential for the assembly of paraspeckles, dynamic nuclear ribonucleoprotein complexes that phase-separate from the nucleoplasm to form liquid drop-like structures 2-7. In contrast, NEAT1_1 expression is not sufficient to induce paraspeckle formation, and recent reports suggest that NEAT1_1 can localize to structures that are distinct from paraspeckles 7,8. NEAT1 expression and paraspeckle formation are upregulated in response to a variety of cellular stressors including mitochondrial stress, proteasome inhibition, oncogene-induced replication stress, hypoxia, heat shock, and viral infections 9-18. It is now generally accepted that NEAT1 and paraspeckles regulate gene expression at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels by acting as hubs that sequester specific gene regulatory proteins and mRNAs 16-20. Several lines of evidence suggest that NEAT1 and paraspeckles play critical roles in stress response pathways in general, and at specific developmental stages. NEAT1 knockout mice display compromised mammary gland development and corpus luteum formation 21,22. Moreover, it was recently shown that maternal and zygotic NEAT1-depletion frequently led to early developmental arrest at the 16-or 32-cell stage in mouse embryonic cells 23. Cancer cells are exposed to a variety of extrinsic and intrinsic stressors like hypoxia, proteotoxicity, DNA damage, and reactive metabolic intermediates 24. Such malignancy-associated stress has been shown to induce NEAT1 expression and paraspeckle formation in vivo 15,16. NEAT1 levels are elevated in hypoxic regions of breast cancer cell line xenografts, and skin tumors induced by genotoxic stress in mice, display increased NEAT1