Evaluation of Expression Level of miR-3135b-5p in Blood Samples of Breast Cancer Patients Experiencing Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity.

The efficacy of chemotherapeutics in the treatment of breast cancer is limited by cardiotoxicity, which could lead to irreversible heart failure. The evaluation of miRNA levels as a vital biomarker could predict cardiotoxicity induced by chemotherapy. According to our previous meta-analysis study on patients with heart failure, we found that miR-3135b had a significant increase in patients with heart failure. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the expression level of miR-3135b in the blood sample of patients experiencing chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity. Blood samples were collected from breast cancer patients or breast cancer patients who had received chemotherapy and had not experienced any chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity (N = 37, control group) and breast cancer patients experiencing chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity after chemotherapy (N = 33). The expression level of miR-3135b was evaluated using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The 2^-ΔCt values of miR-3135b were compared between two groups. We observed a significant increase in the expression level of miR-3135b between patients experiencing chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity and the control group (P = 0.0001). Besides, the ejection fraction parameter was correlated with the expression level of miR-3135b (r = 0.5 and P = 0.0001). To sum up, miR-3135b might be useful as a promising circulating biomarker in predicting cardiotoxicity induced by chemotherapy. However, more studies are needed to validate miR-3135b as a biomarker for the diagnosis of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12291-022-01075-3.