Downregulation of miR-1269a pronounces breast cancer bone metastasis

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the most prevalent cancer among women globally. Metastasis poses a significant challenge for BC patients and its complete mechanism is yet to be discovered. Bone is one of the most common sites for metastasis in BC patients, making early diagnosis of bone metastasis necessary. To identify potential biomarkers for early diagnosis, we analyzed transcriptomic data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, focusing on differentially expressed microRNAs. Among the screened miRNAs, miR-1269a was significantly downregulated based on log2 FC ±2 and adjusted p-value ≤0.05. Receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis revealed that miR-1269a could effectively distinguish between bone-metastatic and primary breast cancer patients. Additionally, we found a significant downregulation of miR-1269a in metastatic breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) compared to non-metastatic breast cancer cells (MCF-7). TargetScan and miRDB were used to identify targets of miR-1269a, leading to a focus on cyclin D1 (CCND1), a cell cycle regulator gene, significantly overexpressed in primary breast cancer patients. Overall, this study uncovers the unique role of hsa-miR-1269a as a biomarker associated with the biological and transcriptional processes in bone metastasis in breast cancer. The study also identifies a novel miRNA-mRNA axis, miR-1269a-CCND1, which possesses a potential biomarker role in BC patients with Bone metastasis.