Abstract
MicroRNA-21 (miR-21) overexpression is characteristic for various types of tumors, but it is still unknown whether its expression levels differ between invasive and non-invasive breast carcinomas. The main goal of the study was to determine the difference in miR-21 expression among normal tissue, non-invasive, invasive with non-invasive component, and pure invasive breast cancer samples, to explain its potential role and significance in breast cancer invasiveness. The second goal was to propose miR-21 as molecular marker of breast cancer invasiveness and potential target for future anti-miR therapies for the prevention of invasion and metastasis. In order to reveal the role of miR-21 in breast cancer invasiveness, we measured miR-21 expression levels in 44 breast cancer and four normal samples by stem-loop real-time RT-PCR using TaqMan technology. Relative expression levels of miR-21 were significantly higher in invasive than in other groups (P = 0.002) and significantly higher in invasive compared with invasive with non-invasive component group in histological (P = 0.043) and nuclear grade 2 (P = 0.036), estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) (P = 0.006), progesterone-receptor-positive (PR+) (P = 0.008), ER+PR+ (P = 0.007), and proliferation index (Ki-67) ≤ 20 % (P = 0.036) tumors. Our findings suggest that miR-21 could be independent molecular marker of breast cancer invasiveness and potential target for future anti-miR therapies for the prevention of invasion and metastasis.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Serbia, Grant ON173049 (Nina Petrović, Vesna Mandušić, Boban Stanojević, Silvana Lukić, Lidija Todorović, Bogomir Dimitrijević). We thank Radoslav Davidović for valuable technical support.
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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Petrović, N., Mandušić, V., Stanojević, B. et al. The difference in miR-21 expression levels between invasive and non-invasive breast cancers emphasizes its role in breast cancer invasion. Med Oncol 31, 867 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-014-0867-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-014-0867-x