Abstract 5337: MicroRNA-30c targets cytoskeleton genes involved in breast cancer cell invasion.

Metastasis remains a significant challenge in treating cancer. MicroRNAs have emerged as important epigenetic regulators of various cellular processes during cancer development and progression. The goal of this study was to characterize signaling pathways for miRNA biomarkers that regulate breast cancer metastasis. Here we show that human breast tumor biomarker miR-30c regulates invasion by targeting the cytoskeleton network genes encoding Twinfilin 1 (TWF1) and Vimentin (VIM). Both VIM and TWF1 have been shown to regulate epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Similar to TWF1, VIM also regulates F-actin formation, a key component of cellular transition to a more invasive mesenchymal phenotype. To further characterize the role of the TWF1 pathway in breast cancer, we found that IL-11 is an important target of TWF1 that regulates breast cancer cell invasion and STAT3 phosphorylation. This miR-30c VIM/TWF1-IL11-pSTAT3 pathway will expedite the development of targeting strategies to prevent and treat breast tumor progression. Citation Format: Jessica Bockhorn, Kathy Yee, Ya-Fang Chang, Aleix Prat, Dezheng Huo, Chika Nwachukwu, Rachel Dalton, Simo Huang, Kaitlin E. Swanson, Charles M. Perou, Olufunmilayo I. Olufunmilayo, Michael F. Clarke, Huiping Liu, Geoffrey Greene. MicroRNA-30c targets cytoskeleton genes involved in breast cancer cell invasion. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5337. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-5337