10P - Novel theranostic agents in non-metastatic Egyptian breast cancer patients: miR-96, miR-1275, miR-4317 and miR-744

Background

Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have emerged as a significant theranostic agents in Breast Cancer (BC). These ncRNAs including microRNAs (miRNAs) play a fundamental role in regulating BC hallmarks and hold significant potential as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic agents for non-metastatic BC thus perfectly fulfill the definition of theranostic agents. Moreover, ncRNAs offer advantages over traditional biomarkers as they provide greater accuracy and are less invasive nature. miR-1275 and miR-4317 have been reported by our group to act as tumor suppressor miRNAs in BC through repressing cellular migration, invasion and clonogenicity. However, miR-96 and miR-744 were spotted as aggressive oncomiRs in BC activating several oncogenic pathways. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression patterns of the aforementioned miRNAs in BC patients and to assess their role as theranostic agents through assessing their association with different clinical parameters.

Methods

BC patients (n=30) were recruited. BC tumors and their normal counterparts were resected. BC patients ‘age range (25-70 years old). Lymph node involvement, tumor grade, molecular subtype, ki-67 levels and PD-L1 surface expression were evaluated in all patients included in the study. RNA was extracted from biopsies, reverse transcribed and quantified using q-RT-PCR.

Results

OncomiRs: miR-744 and miR-96 were found to be overexpressed in BC tissues compared to their normal counterparts. While the tumor suppressor miRNAs: miR-1275 and miR-4317 was found to de downregulated in BC tissues. Upon assessing BC patients’ clinical parameter, it was found that miR-744 and miR-96 expression levels are correlated with high tumor grade (53%), positive lymphnode metastasis (63.3%). On the other hand, miR-1275 and miR-4317 reduced expression levels were found to be associated with PDL1+TNBC patients (60%). Yet, miR-744, miR-96 and miR-1275 levels were found to be higher in young BC patients.

Conclusions

This study highlights the involvement of paradoxically acting miRNAs in the differential diagnosis of BC subtypes and highlights their high prognostic potential. Moreover, it identifies the studied panel of miRNAs as novel theranostic agents in BC.

Editorial acknowledgement

Clinical trial identification

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.