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Updated: Feb 12, 2026

Invasive Behavior of Human Breast Cancer Cells in Embryonic Zebrafish
Published on: April 25, 2017
Long non-coding RNA BANCR indicates poor prognosis for breast cancer and promotes cell proliferation and invasion
1Department of Medical Ultrasound, Xuzhou Hospital Affiliated to School of Medicine, Southeast University, Xuzhou, China. redfields001@163.com.
Objective:
We investigated the expression of human long non-coding ribonucleic acid (lncRNA), BRAF-activated non-coding RNA (BANCR) in breast cancer tissues and its effects on the in vitro proliferation, apoptosis, invasion and metastasis of breast cancer cells; also, we investigated its possible mechanism.
Patients And Methods:
The expressions of BANCR in 65 pairs of breast cancer tissues and para-carcinoma normal breast tissues were detected by Real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The expressions of BANCR in normal breast epithelial cells (MCF10A) and breast cancer cells (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, SKBR3 and BT-20) were further detected. The knockdown efficiency of BANCR small interfering RNA (siRNA) in MCF-7 cells was detected by qRT-PCR. The effects of BANCR knockdown on proliferation, apoptosis, invasion and metastasis capacities of MCF-7 cells were explored via methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) proliferation assay, cell colony formation assay, fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and transwell migration assay. Western blotting was used to detect the changes in expressions of apoptosis-related proteins, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related proteins and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) after knockdown of BANCR.
Results:
The expression level of lncRNA BANCR in breast cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in para-carcinoma normal tissues. The prognosis of patients in low-expression BANCR group was significantly superior to that of patients in high-expression BANCR group. After BANCR knockdown in breast cancer MCF-7 cells, the cell proliferation and colony formation capacities were significantly inhibited. Further mechanism research showed that inhibiting BANCR could promote the apoptosis of MCF-7 cells. Results of Western blotting revealed that the expressions of B-cell lymphoma 2 associated X protein (BAX), cleaved-Caspase-3 and cleaved-poly adenosine diphosphate-ribose polymerase (PARP) in knockdown group were significantly up-regulated compared with those in control group. Both wound-healing assay and transwell migration assay showed that the down-regulation of lncRNA BANCR could inhibit the invasion and metastasis capacities of MCF-7 cells, whose mechanism was related to the inhibition of EMT process and down-regulation of MMP expressions in cells.
Conclusions:
LncRNA BANCR is highly expressed in breast cancer, which is significantly correlated with the prognosis of patients; moreover, it can promote the growth, invasion and metastasis of ovarian cancer cells. The down-regulation of BANCR can inhibit the proliferation, invasion and metastasis capacities of MCF-7 cells.
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