Affiliations: [a] Division of Anatomy, Biochemistry and Genetic, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine | [b] Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, School of Medicine, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan | [c] Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Nihad Al-Othman, Division of Anatomy, Biochemistry, and Genetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. Tel.: +970598776995; E-mail: n.othman@najah.edu
Abstract: Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent type of malignancy affecting females worldwide. Molecular–based studies resulted in an identification of at least four subtypes of breast carcinoma, including luminal A and luminal B, Human growth factor receptor (HER-2)-enriched and triple-negative tumors (basal-like and normal breast-like). A proportion of BC cases are of the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) type. TNBC lacks the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER-2, and is known to express androgen receptor (AR) at considerable levels. AR has been shown to promote the progression of TNBC. However, the exact mechanisms have yet to be unraveled. One of these mechanisms could be through regulating the expression of microRNA (miRNA) molecules, which play an important regulatory role in BC through post-transcriptional gene silencing. Activation of AR controls the expression of miRNA molecules, which target selective mRNAs, consequently, affecting protein expression. In this review we attempt to elucidate the relations between AR and miRNA in TNBC.
Keywords: Breast cancer, triple negative breast cancer, androgen receptor, miRNA
DOI: 10.3233/BD-190416
Journal: Breast Disease, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 15-27, 2020
