• Down-regulation of Maternally Expressed Gene 3 (MEG3) LncRNA and up-regulation of Urothelial Carcinoma Associated 1 (UCA1) LncRNA in Breast cancer patients
  • Maryam Yousefpour,1,* Sara Akhavan attar,2 Zahra Pourramezan,3 Masoomeh Azizi,4 Mana Oloomi,5 Iman Salahshourifar,6
    1. Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    2. Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    5. Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    6. Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran


  • Introduction: Breast cancer (BC) is one of the most frequent malignancies among Iranian women. Dysregulated expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) is observed in BC as well as in many other malignancies. LncRNAs have recently considered as central regulators in diverse biological processes and emerged as vital players controlling tumorigenesis. They function as either oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. In this regard, we considered Urothelial Carcinoma Associated 1 (UCA1) as an oncogene and Maternally Expressed Gene 3 (MEG3) as a tumor suppresser gene. The expression level of these two LncRNAs was evaluated as a potential prognostic biomarker in breast cancer patients.
  • Methods: In this research, 30 blood samples from normal women and 30 blood samples from patients with BC were collected and investigated. RNA was extracted from whole blood and then cDNA were synthesized. Finally, the expression level of UCA1 and MEG3 was measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) with specific primers.
  • Results: Expression analyses showed that UCA1 was significantly up-regulated while MEG3 was down-regulated in patients with BC compared with controls.
  • Conclusion: Better understanding of the BC molecular biology is related to the function and behavior of lncRNAs. The transcriptional status of UCA1(up-regulation) and MEG3(down-regulation) in patients with BC compared with controls in current study shows that lncRNAs can use for early detection as well as designing targeted therapy in BC.
  • Keywords: Breast cancer, LncRNA, MEG3, UCA1, qRT-PCR