The identification of multifocal breast cancer-associated long non-coding RNAs

To identify long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which may be associated with multifocal and multicentric breast cancer (MMBC) by analyzing the differential expression of non-coding RNA in MMBC and unifocal breast cancers (UBC).

156 cases of invasive MMBC patients (136 patients with 2 focuses and 20 patients with 3 focuses) and 130 cases of UBC were collected from January 2005 to December 2015 in Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital. The differentially expressed lncRNAs in MMBC and UBC were screened by gene chip. RT-PCR was used to verify the differentially expressed lncRNAs.

Significantly different expression was found in 1080 lncRNAs between MMBC and UBC (FC > 4, p < 0.05), among which, 458 were upregulated and 622 were down-regulated. In homologous lncRNAs, the expression levels of four lncRNAs including C19orf33, C3orf52, C15orf48 and C4orf19 in MMBC tissue were significantly different than those in UBC tissues. RT-PCR verified that the expression of C19orf33, C3orf52 and C15orf48 in MMBC tissue was significantly up-regulated and the expression of C4orf19 was significantly down-regulated, which was consistent with that of gene chip.

C19orf33, C3orf52, C15orf48 and C4orf19 may have important functions in MMBC, and may be used as markers for MMBC.