Endocrine Abstracts

Breast cancer is the most frequent carcinoma in women and its prevalence could be reduced by early detection which can improve the chances of successful treatment and recovery. Post transcriptional genetic modifiers known as microRNAs (miRNAs) are widely believed to play an essential role in many malignancies, acting as either tumor suppressors or oncogenes. Many recent studies on breast cancer have analyzed various miRNAs that may influence breast cancer progression and development. This study aims to determine the expression pattern miR-16 in plasma of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy as against healthy controls. MiRNA was isolated from plasma samples collected from fifty women with breast cancer undergoing radiotherapy and twenty women without breast cancer. Expression levels of miRNA-16 was quantified using the quantitative real time PCR assay. Amongst the cases, there was 1 (2%) stage I patient, 6 (12%) stage II patients, 27 (54%) stage III patients, 16 (32%) Stage IV patients. MiR-16 was higher in the control samples than cases and a progressive increase of miR-16 in the plasma from stage I to stage IV (having Ct values 40.15, 38.63±1.45, 38.04±2.66, 37.45±1.52 from stage I to IV respectively). Triple negative receptor cases showed a greater expression of gene. The pattern observed suggests the action of miR-16 as a tumour suppressor. In conclusion miR-16 may potentially to be used as a prognostic as well as a predictive marker in breast cancer patients.

Keywords: miR-16, Breast cancer, ER, PR, HER 2, Triple negative