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. 2017 Jul 22;8(41):69934-69944.
doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.19482. eCollection 2017 Sep 19.

Differential expression of exosomal miRNAs between breast cancer patients with and without recurrence

Aiko Sueta  1 , Yutaka Yamamoto  1 , Mai Tomiguchi  1 , Takashi Takeshita  1 , Mutsuko Yamamoto-Ibusuki  2 , Hirotaka Iwase  1
Affiliations

Differential expression of exosomal miRNAs between breast cancer patients with and without recurrence

Aiko Sueta et al. Oncotarget. .

Abstract

Background: Exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising candidate biomarkers for diagnosis or prognosis for breast cancer. We investigated the prognostic role of exosomal miRNAs in serum samples derived from patients with breast cancer and compared miRNA expression between serum and tumor tissues.

Methods: The miRNA profile derived from exosome between breast cancer patients with recurrence (n = 16) and without recurrence (n = 16) were compared by miRNA PCR array. Further, we examined the expression of miRNAs derived from tissues in the patients with breast cancer with (n = 35) and without recurrence (n = 39) by qRT-PCR.

Results: Of 384 miRNAs, three miRNAs (miR-338-3p, miR-340-5p, and miR-124-3p) were significantly upregulated and eight (miR-29b-3p, miR-20b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-130a-3p, miR-18a-5p, miR-195-5p, miR-486-5p, and miR-93-5p) were significantly downregulated in the patients with recurrence. We evaluated the expression of the miRNAs in tumor tissues. The patients with recurrence had higher levels of miR-340 at their primary site as well as in the serum. In contrast, miR-195-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-93-5p, and miR-130a-3p, derived from tumor tissues that were downregulated in the serum from patients with recurrence, were higher in the patients with recurrence than in those with no recurrence. In logistic regression analysis, miR-340-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-130a-3p, and miR-93-5p were significantly associated with recurrence.

Conclusions: Several exosomal miRNAs may be useful biomarkers to predict breast cancer recurrence. We show the different expression patterns of miRNAs between tumor tissues and serum. These findings may suggest selective mechanism of release of exosomal miRNAs by cancer cells to regulate their progression.

Keywords: breast cancer; circulating biomarker; exosome; microRNA; prognostic factor.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST The authors have declared no conflicts of interest. No external sources of funding were used for this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Volcano plot of PCR-based array between the patients with and without breast cancer recurrence
The red circle indicates a fold change with values greater than 2, and green circles indicate a fold change with values lower than -2.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Comparison of miRNA levels between tumor tissues from patients with recurrence and without recurrence
(A) The miRNA upregulated in the exosomes by PCR array; (B) the miRNAs downregulated in exosomes by PCR array.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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