A miRNA-based signature predicts development of disease recurrence in HER2 positive breast cancer after adjuvant trastuzumab-based treatment

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 33825
• Main Authors: Du, F., Yuan, P., Zhao, Z. T., Yang, Z., Wang, T., Zhao, J. D., Luo, Y., Ma, F., Wang, J. Y., Fan, Y., Cai, R. G., Zhang, P., Li, Q., Song, Y. M., Xu, B. H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 21.09.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 692/4028/67/1347; 692/53/2422; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - drug therapy; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Breast Neoplasms - pathology; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; ErbB-2 protein; Female; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic - drug effects; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Immunotherapy; Kaplan-Meier Estimate; MicroRNAs - genetics; MicroRNAs - metabolism; Middle Aged; miRNA; Monoclonal antibodies; multidisciplinary; Multivariate Analysis; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - pathology; Polymerase chain reaction; Prognosis; Proportional Hazards Models; Receptor, ErbB-2 - metabolism; Reproducibility of Results; ROC Curve; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Targeted cancer therapy; Time Factors; Trastuzumab; Trastuzumab - pharmacology; Trastuzumab - therapeutic use
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep33825

Approximately 20% of HER2 positive breast cancer develops disease recurrence after adjuvant trastuzumab treatment. This study aimed to develop a molecular prognostic model that can reliably stratify patients by risk of developing disease recurrence. Using miRNA microarrays, nine miRNAs that differentially expressed between the recurrent and non-recurrent patients were identified. Then, we validated the expression of these miRNAs using qRT-PCR in training set (n = 101), and generated a 2-miRNA (miR-4734 and miR-150-5p) based prognostic signature. The prognostic accuracy of this classifier was further confirmed in an internal testing set (n = 57), and an external independent testing set (n = 53). Besides, by comparing the ROC curves, we found the incorporation of this miRNA based classifier into TNM stage could improve the prognostic performance of TNM system. The results indicated the 2-miRNA based signature was a reliable prognostic biomarker for patients with HER2 positive breast cancer.