MicroRNA-based regulation of Aurora A kinase in breast cancer

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// Adewale Oluwaseun Fadaka 1 , Nicole Remaliah Samantha Sibuyi 1 , Abram Madimabe Madiehe 1 , 2 and Mervin Meyer 1 1 Department of Science and Innovation/Mintek Nanotechnology Innovation Centre, Biolabels Node, Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa 2 Nanobiotechnology Research Group, Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa Correspondence to: Adewale Oluwaseun Fadaka, email: afadaka@uwc.ac.za Keywords: AURKA; breast cancer therapy; regulatory microRNA; human argonaute; gene expression Received: August 18, 2020 Accepted: October 27, 2020 Published: November 17, 2020 Copyright: © 2020 Fadaka et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ABSTRACT The involvement of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in cellular physiology and disease pathogenesis is becoming increasingly relevant in recent years specifically in cancer research. Breast cancer (BC) has become a health concern and accounts for most of the cancer-related incidences and mortalities reported amongst females. In spite of the presence of promising tools for BC therapy, the mortality rate of metastatic BC cases is still high. Therefore, the genomic exploration of the BC subtype and the use of ncRNAs for possible regulation is pivotal. The expression and prognostic values of AURKA gene were assessed by Oncomine, GEPIA, KM-plotter, and bc-GenExMiner v4.4, respectively. Associated proteins and functional enrichment were evaluated by Cytoscape and DAVID databases. Additionally, molecular docking approach was employed to investigate the regulatory role of hsa-miR-32-3p assisted argonaute (AGO) protein of AURKA gene in BC. AURKA gene was highly expressed in patients with BC relative to normal counterpart and significantly correlated with poor survival. The docking result suggested that AURKA could be regulated by hsa-miR-32-3p as confirmed by the reported binding energy and specific interactions. The study gives some insights into role of AURKA and its regulation by microRNAs through AGO protein. It also provides exciting opportunities for cancer therapeutic intervention.