Evaluation of MiR-1908-3p as a novel serum biomarker for breast cancer and analysis its oncogenic function and target genes

Youzhi Zhu,Yao Lin,Xiaoxue Xiong,Yun Xia,Qingshui Wang,Haitao Niu,Ling Chen,Yajuan Chen,Xiangjin Chen,Shuyun Weng,Huizhen Ni,Junyu Lin,Yan Ye

doi:10.1186/s12885-020-07125-4

Abstract

BackgroundBreast cancer is one of the most common tumors for women globally. Various miRNAs have been reported to play a crucial role in breast cancer, however the clinical significance of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer remains unclear. The present study aimed to explore the role of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer.MethodsThe expression of miR-1908-3p was detected in 50 pairs of breast cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues, 60 breast cancer patient serum and 60 healthy volunteer serum. The functional roles of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer cells such as proliferation, migration and invasion were evaluated using CCK8, SRB, wound healing and transwell chambers. In addition, bioinformatics tools were used to identify potential targets of miR-1908-3p.ResultsThe results showed that the expression of miR-1908-3p were increased in breast cancer tissues and serum compared with normal breast tissues and serum of healthy volunteers respectively. Furthermore, the young breast cancer patients and HER2-positive patients had a higher level of tissues’ miR-1908-3p than elder breast cancer patients and HER2-negative patients, respectively. The young breast cancer patients had a higher level of serum miR-1908-3p than elder breast cancer patients, ROC analysis suggested that miR-1908-3p had the potential as a promising serum diagnostic biomarker of breast cancer. Up-regulation of miR-1908-3p promoted the cells proliferation, migration and invasion while knockdown of miR-1908-3p inhibited these processes in breast cancer cell MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231. The potential target genes of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer included ID4, LTBP4, GPM6B, RGMA, EFCAB1, ALX4, OSR1 and PPARA. Higher expression of these eight genes correlated with a better prognosis for breast cancer patients.ConclusionsThese results suggest that miR-1908-3p may exert its oncogenic functions via suppression of these eight genes in breast cancer.

Highlights

Breast cancer is one of the most common tumors for women globally
Detection in the 50 breast cancer tissues samples and 50 matched adjacent normal miR-1908-3p promoted the proliferation, migration, and invasion of breast cancer MCF-7 cells In order to study the biological function of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer cells, miR-1908-3p mimics, miR-1908-3p inhibitors and miR-1908-3p negative control were separately transfected into MCF-7 cells
CCK8 and SRB were applied to explore the function of miR-1908-3p on breast cancer cell proliferation

Summary

Introduction

Breast cancer is one of the most common tumors for women globally. Various miRNAs have been reported to play a crucial role in breast cancer, the clinical significance of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer remains unclear. The present study aimed to explore the role of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer. MiRNAs are a type of non-coding RNAs containing 21–25 nucleotides, and function as gene regulators by binding to target genes and inhibiting translation [8]. Many of these target genes are involved in fundamental biological processes such as cells differentiation, cells proliferation and cells migration [9,10,11,12]. The expression, functional roles and target genes of miR-1908-3p in breast cancer progression has not yet been studied

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion