Genetic Variations in miR-30 Family Member Regulatory Regions Are Associated with Breast Cancer Risk in a Chinese Population

الملخص EN

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) of the miR-30 family are closely linked with tumor metastasis and play key roles in the complex malignant phenotypes of cancers by targeting many tumor-related genes.

Deregulated expression of miR-30 family members has been commonly observed in breast cancer.

However, associations between the genetic variants in the regulatory region of miR-30 family and the risk of breast cancer are still limited, especially in the Chinese Han population.

In the present study, we conducted a case-control analysis wherein 1064 breast cancer patients and 1073 healthy controls underwent genotyping of 10 SNPs in the regulatory region of miR-30 family members.

Multivariate logistic regression analyses illustrated that the rs763354 variant in the miR-30a regulatory region was linked with a significant decrease in breast cancer risk in an additive model (adjusted OR=0.86, 95% CI: 0.75-0.98, P=0.022).

Further, eQTL analyses also indicated that this SNP was associated with miR-30a expression levels in breast cancer samples compiled in the TCGA database (P=0.020).

The Kaplan-Meier plotter showed that breast cancer patients with higher miR-30a expression have significantly better outcomes than do patients expressing low levels of this miRNA (HR=0.75, 95% CI: 0.61-0.91, P=0.0041).

Together, these findings suggest that the miR-30a rs763354 SNP is an important regulator of breast cancer risk, thus making it a potentially viable prognostic biomarker and one that can be used to guide therapeutic treatment in affected patients.