• Potential roles of hsa_circ_0043278 in breast cancer and its association with reproductive and clinicopathological factors
  • Zahra Firoozi,1 Elham Mohammadisoleimani,2 Hosein Mansoori ,3 Mohammad Mehdi Naghizadeh ,4 Sedigheh Tahmasebi ,5 Yaser Mansoori ,6,*
    1. Department of Medical Genetics, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran.
    2. Department of Medical Biotechnology, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran
    3. Department of Medical Genetics, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran.
    4. Noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran.
    5. Breast Diseases Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
    6. Department of Medical Genetics, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran.


  • Introduction: Breast cancer (BC) causes the highest related death among women worldwide. Years of cancer research provided a great body of evidence that indicates the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) in BC. One of the important functions of circRNAs is to sponge miRNAs, which in turn affects the expression of their target mRNAs. In this study, we aimed to assess the expression of hsa_circ_0043278 in breast tumors and normal tissues, and in these contexts, we investigate the potential hsa_circ_0043278/miRNA/mRNA axes.
  • Methods: We performed total RNA extraction using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, USA). After synthesis of cDNA (complementary DNA) according to the manufacturer’s protocol (Fermentas, Cat.No: K1622), the expression of hsa_circ_0043278 was analyzed in 50 tumor samples and their adjacent non-cancerous tissues, using quantitative real-time RCR. Also, we assessed the association of hsa_circ_0043278 expression with demographic and clinicopathological information of patients. Then, we used bioinformatic approaches to identify potentially important competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks that are regulated by this circRNA.
  • Results: hsa_circ_0043278 expression was downregulated in tumor tissues in comparison to adjacent normal tissues. Also, it was found that decreased expression of hsa_circ_0043278 is significantly related to early-onset menarche (age at menarche ˂14 years in subjects) and larger tumor size (≥ 2.5). The bioinformatics analyses proving that hsa_circ_0043278 has function as a miRNAs sponge regulator.
  • Conclusion: The current study indicated that hsa_circ_0043278 which show a significant down expression in breast cancer tissues compared with normal adjacent tissues, is related to the age of onset of menstruation and tumor size in studied women. Also, our results suggest that misregulation of various mRNAs could be mediated by hsa_circ_0043278 through sponging the key miRNAs. In addition, hsa_circ_0043278 could be a promising molecular biomarker for BC.
  • Keywords: hsa_circ_0043278, Breast cancer, Expression, ceRNA, circRNA