Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Transcribed Ultraconserved Regions Are Associated with Clinicopathological Features in Breast Cancer
Publication Date
1-26-2022
Journal
Biomolecules
Abstract
Ultraconserved regions (UCRs) are 481 genome segments, with length longer than 200 bp, that are 100% conserved among humans, mice, and rats. The majority of UCRs are transcriptionally active (T-UCRs) as many of them produce non-coding RNAs. In a previous study, we evaluated the expression level of T-UCRs in breast cancer (BC) patients and found that 63% of transcripts correlated with some clinical and/or molecular parameter of BC. In this study, we delved into the expression levels of 12 T-UCRs and correlated them with clinicopathological parameters, immunohistochemical markers, and overall survival in two breast cancer cohorts: TCGA and Brazilian patients. We found that uc.268 is more expressed in TCGA patients under 40 years of age, associated with progesterone receptor (PR) and estrogen receptor (ER), and its high expression is found in luminal A. Lower uc.84 and uc.376 were respectively observed in metastatic and stage IV tumors associated with good prognostic in luminal B. Moreover, uc.84 was only related to the HER2+, while uc.376 was related to ER+ and PR+, and HER2+. A panel composed of uc.147, uc.271, and uc.427 distinguished luminal A from triple negative patients with an AUC of 0.9531 (sensitivity 92.19% and specificity 86.76%). These results highlight the potential role of T-UCRs in BC and provide insights into the potential application of T-UCRs as biomarkers.
Keywords
Animals, Brazil, Breast Neoplasms, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic, Humans, Mice, Rats, T-UCRs, breast cancer (BC), lncRNAs
DOI
10.3390/biom12020214
PMID
35204715
PMCID
PMC8961524
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
1-26-2022
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
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