There Is No Association between MicroRNA Gene Polymorphisms and Risk of Triple Negative Breast Cancer in a Chinese Han Population

Abstract

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined by the lack of the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). It is characterized by aggressive behavior, poor prognosis and lack of targeted therapies. MicroRNA (miRNA) as a novel modulator of gene expression has played an important regulatory role in the malignancy. Dysregulation and/or mutation of the miRNAs may also contribute to the TNBC susceptibility since it is associated with the expression of ER, PR and HER2. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in miRNAs may be extremely relevant for TNBC. We tried to validate the hypothesis that genetic variations in miRNA are associated with TNBC development, and identify candidate biomarkers for TNBC susceptibility and clinical treatment. We screened the genetic variants in all miRNA genes listed in the public database miRBase and NCBI. A total of 23 common SNPs in 22 miRNAs, which tagged the known common variants in the Chinese Han people with a minor allele frequency greater than 0.05, were genotyped. This case-control study involved 191 patients with TNBC and 192 healthy female controls. Frequencies of SNPs were compared between cases and controls to identify the SNPs associated with TNBC susceptibility. No significant association was found between TNBC risk and the SNPs in the miRNA genes in the Chinese Han people (P>0.05), but this warrants further studies.

Association of the pri-miR-124-1 rs531564 polymorphism with cancer risk: A meta-analysis

“…Based on the selection criteria above, five case-control studies (13)(14)(15)(16)(17) were finally enrolled in the meta-analysis with publication years that ranged from 2011 to 2014. The detailed literature retrieval process is presented in Fig.…”

“…A total of 4,763 subjects were involved in the meta-analysis, including 2,253 cancer cases and 2,510 healthy controls. Multiple cancer types were analyzed in the studies, including triple-negative breast cancer (13), cervical cancer (15) and ESCC (14,(16)(17). The diagnoses of these tumors were confirmed by histological or histopathological examinations.…”

“…The diagnoses of these tumors were confirmed by histological or histopathological examinations. In addition, three studies used hospital-based controls (13)(14)(15), one used population-based controls (17) and one used population-and hospital-based controls (16). Polymerase chain reaction-based ligase detection reaction was performed in two studies (14,15) and three used other methods.…”

“…Previously, Yang et al (10) and Ye et al (11) studied the role of this polymorphism in the cancer risk among Caucasian populations. Additionally, several studies suggested that there was no evident association between the variant genotype of the pri-miR-124-1 rs531564 polymorphism and cancer risk in Chinese populations (12)(13)(14). However, Xiong et al (15) identified that the G allele of rs531564 was less frequent in the cervical cancer patients when compared with healthy subjects (P=0.014) and the polymorphism was clearly associated with a reduced risk of cervical cancer in Chinese women.…”

Associations of miRNA polymorphisms and expression levels with breast cancer risk in the Chinese population

“…Individuals with the variant G allele in the pre-miR-27a rs895819 A/G polymorphism show a reduced risk of breast cancer (Wang et al, 2012). In a previous study, the rs2910164 miR-146a G/C polymorphism showed no association with breast cancer risk (Garcia et al, 2011;Ma et al, 2013).…”