A panel of 8-lncRNA predicts prognosis of breast cancer patients and migration of breast cancer cells.

Lili Zhu,Lanling Weng,Pu Yu,Bingjie Li,Yabing Du,Hong Liu,Kang Cui,Wang Ma,Tengfei Zhang,Alfons Navarro

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249174

Lili Zhu, Lanling Weng + Show 8 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249174

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Abstract

BackgroundBreast cancer (BCa) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among females around the world. Recent studies have indicated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can serve as an independent biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis in many types of cancer, including pancreatic adenocarcinoma, gastric cancer, liver cancer, and lung cancer. Previous studies have shown that many lncRNAs are associated with the occurrence and development of BCa. However, few studies have combined multiple lncRNAs to predict the prognosis of early-stage BCa patients.MethodsSystematic and comprehensive analysis of data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was conducted to identify lncRNA signatures with prognostic value in BCa. Additionally, the relative expression levels of the 8 lncRNA of several BCa cell lines were detected by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and the results were substituted into a risk score formula. Finally, migration assays were used to verify the result from prognostic analysis according to the risk scores among cell lines with different risk scores.ResultsOur study included 808 BCa patients with complete clinical data. A panel of 8 lncRNAs was identified using Wilcox tests as different between normal and tumor tissue of the BCa patients. This panel was used to analyze the survival of BCa patients. Patients with low risk scores had greater overall survival (OS) than those with high risk scores. Multivariate Cox regression analyses demonstrated that the lncRNA signature was an independent prognostic factor. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) suggested that the lncRNAs might be involved in several molecular signaling pathways implicated in BCa such as the DNA replication pathway, the cell cycle pathway, and the pentose phosphate pathway. Validation experiments in breast cancer cells to test cell migration by using wound-healing assays supported the results of the model.ConclusionOur study demonstrated that a panel of 8 lncRNAs has the potential to be used as an independent prognostic biomarker of BCa.

Highlights

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed tumor and the leading cause of cancer death among females around the world, accounting for 24% of all diagnosed cancers and 15% of all cancer death in females [1]
Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) suggested that the long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) might be involved in several molecular signaling pathways implicated in Breast cancer (BCa) such as the DNA replication pathway, the cell cycle pathway, and the pentose phosphate pathway
Our study demonstrated that a panel of 8 lncRNAs has the potential to be used as an independent prognostic biomarker of BCa

Summary

Introduction

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed tumor and the leading cause of cancer death among females around the world, accounting for 24% of all diagnosed cancers and 15% of all cancer death in females [1]. The incidence of breast cancer has been increasing annually in most developing countries, with half of all new breast cancer diagnoses and nearly 60% of breast cancer deaths occurring in developing countries. The optimization of treatments, including endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and Traditional Chinese Medicine, has improved the prognosis of breast cancer patients [3,4,5,6]. Breast cancer (BCa) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among females around the world. Few studies have combined multiple lncRNAs to predict the prognosis of early-stage BCa patients.

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