Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College, Wenzhou, 325000, Zhejiang, China.
Clin Transl Oncol. 2013 Jul;15(7):563-8. doi: 10.1007/s12094-012-0966-0. Epub 2012 Nov 15.
PIWI interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are endogenous regulatory non-coding RNAs which are generally expressed in the germline across animal species. The expressions of piRNAs in tumor tissue were rarely reported until now. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of piRNAs in breast cancer.
Deep sequencing was carried out in four tumor and four matched non-tumor tissues from resected breast cancer cases to screen out differentially expressed piRNAs. Furthermore, the result was evaluated by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technology in 50 patients with breast cancer and the piRNA expression levels were correlated with clinicopathologic features.
Through deep sequencing, six differentially expressed piRNAs were screened out (5 up- and 1 down-regulated) in the four tumor tissues compared with matched non-tumor tissues. Among them, 4 piRNAs (piR-4987, piR-20365, piR-20485 and piR-20582) were confirmed to be up-regulated by realtime RT-PCR in 50 breast cancer (P < 0.001). Moreover, up-regulated piR-4987 expression was associated with lymph node positivity (P = 0.001).
PiRNAs might play a role in breast cancer and act as tumor markers.
PIWI 相互作用 RNA（piRNAs）是内源性调控非编码 RNA，通常在动物物种的生殖系中表达。直到现在，肿瘤组织中 piRNAs 的表达才鲜有报道。本研究旨在探讨 piRNAs 在乳腺癌中的表达。
对 4 例乳腺癌切除标本的肿瘤组织和 4 例配对的非肿瘤组织进行深度测序，以筛选出差异表达的 piRNAs。进一步采用实时逆转录-聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）技术在 50 例乳腺癌患者中进行验证，并分析 piRNA 表达水平与临床病理特征的相关性。
通过深度测序，在 4 例肿瘤组织与配对的非肿瘤组织相比，筛选出 6 个差异表达的 piRNAs（5 个上调和 1 个下调）。其中，4 个 piRNAs（piR-4987、piR-20365、piR-20485 和 piR-20582）通过实时 RT-PCR 在 50 例乳腺癌患者中得到了验证（P < 0.001）。此外，上调的 piR-4987 表达与淋巴结阳性相关（P = 0.001）。
piRNAs 可能在乳腺癌中发挥作用，并可作为肿瘤标志物。
