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

OBJECTIVE: To identify long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA_s), 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). PATIENTS AND METHODS: 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 lncRNA_s in MMBC and UBC were screened by gene chip. RT-PCR was used to verify the differentially expressed lncRNAs. RESULTS: Significantly different expression was found in 1080 lncRNA_s 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. CONCLUSIONS: C19orf33, C3orf52, C15orf48 and C4orf19 may have important functions in MMBC, and may be used as markers for MMBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]