LncRNAs as new biomarkers to differentiate triple negative breast cancer from non-triple negative breast cancer

// Mingming Lv 1,* , Pengfei Xu 1,* , Ying Wu 1,* , Lei Huang 3 , Wenqu Li 3 , Shanshan Lv 1 , Xiaowei Wu 5 , Xin Zeng 1 , Rong Shen 1 , Xuemei Jia 1 , Yongmei Yin 3 , Yun Gu 2 , Hongyan Yuan 1,4 , Hui Xie 1,3 and Ziyi Fu 1 1 Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Medical Institute, Affiliated Nanjing Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 2 Department of Pathology, Affiliated Nanjing Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 3 First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 4 Department of Oncology and Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C., USA 5 Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Ziyi Fu, email: // Hui Xie, email: // Keywords : triple negative breast cancer, lncRNA, biomarker, therapy target Received : July 21, 2015 Accepted : January 19, 2016 Published : February 19, 2016 Abstract Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of breast cancer with high heterogeneity. To date, there is no efficient therapy for TNBC patients and the prognosis is poor. It is urgent to find new biomarkers for the diagnosis of TNBC or efficient therapy targets. As an area of focus in the post-genome period, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been found to play critical roles in many cancers, including TNBC. However, there is little information on differentially expressed lncRNAs between TNBC and non-TNBC. We detected the expression levels of lncRNAs in TNBC and non-TNBC tissues separately. Then we analyzed the lncRNA expression signature of TNBC relative to non-TNBC, and found dysregulated lncRNAs participated in important biological processes though Gene Ontology and Pathway analysis. Finally, we validated these lncRNA expression levels in breast cancer tissues and cells, and then confirmed that 4 lncRNAs (RP11-434D9.1, LINC00052, BC016831, and IGKV) were correlated with TNBC occurrence through receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. This study offers helpful information to understand the initiation and development mechanisms of TNBC comprehensively and suggests potential biomarkers for diagnosis or therapy targets for clinical treatment.