Differential Expression of Spliced Transcript Variants in Breast Cancer.

BACKGROUND

We investigated the expression pattern of a human stem cell-specific, large intergenic RNA regulator of reprogramming () and its spliced transcript variants in breast tumors. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in women; therefore, finding a reliable diagnostic tumor marker, based on the molecular profile of tumor cells, is warranted.

METHODS

qRT-PCR was used to investigate the expression alteration of a specific stem cell-related and its spliced transcript variants in breast tumors which provided by the Iran National Tumor Bank (2014-2016). Suitability of and expression alterations of its spliced transcript variants as breast tumor biomarkers were examined by ROC curve analysis.

RESULTS

Expression was significantly upregulated in variants 1 (NR-048536) and 4 (AB844432) and downregulated in variant 3 (AB844431), with expression levels failing to distinguish between breast tumor types, grades, and malignancy stages. Whereas ROC curve analysis gave good scores to the expressions of variants 1 (AUC=0.7675, =0.003) and 3 (AUC=0.9383, =0.00173), suggesting their suitability as potential breast tumor biomarkers, it gave an AUC score of 0.6033 for spliced variant 4 (=0.4118), denoting its unsuitability as a breast cancer biomarker.

CONCLUSION

Aberrant expressions of spliced transcript variants could serve as reliable biomarkers with potential usefulness in breast cancer diagnosis. However, further research should elucidate the role and tissue expression of spliced transcript variants in various cancers.