LncRNA, miRNA and transcriptional co-regulatory network of breast and ovarian cancer reveals hub molecules

Abstract

Our research focused on the development of a regulatory network of miRNA-lncRNA and miRNA-transcription factor associated with Breast Cancer (BC) and Ovarian Cancer (OC), utilising experimentally identified data from previous research works. The regulatory data from the target network helped in the identification of the most vital miRNA, lncRNA and transcription factor (TFs) hub molecules involved in the prognosis of BC and OC. Breast cancer is one of the leading types of cancer in the world whereas ovarian cancer is difficult to detect due to the lack of symptoms in the initial stages. lncRNAs are known to compete for miRNAs as per previous evidence shown in favour of the competing endogenous RNA theory. TFs are vital proteins that regulate the expression of protein coding genes. miRNAs have been known to be involved in post-transcriptional gene silencing. Thus miRNA-lncRNA interactions and miRNA-TF interactions should have a significant impact on the expression of different genes, the irregularity of which leads to diseases like cancer. Our work has revealed three lncRNAs: KCNQ1OT1, XIST and NEAT1 as well as two TFs: RELA and TP53 to have the most significant impact on both breast and ovarian cancer. We identified four miRNAs which had the maximum lncRNA targets, common to both cancers: hsa-mir-93-5p, hsa-mir-519d-3p, hsa-mir-106a-5p and hsa-mir-106b-5p. The top 15 miRNAs having maximum TF targets were found to be identical for both cancers.