The pursuit of minimally invasive biomarkers is a challenging but exciting area of research. Clearly, such markers would need to be sensitive and specific enough to aid in the detection of breast cancer at an early stage, would monitor progression of the disease, and could predict the individual patient's response to treatment. Unfortunately, to date, markers with such characteristics have not made it to the clinic for breast cancer. Past years, many studies indicated that the non-coding part of our genome (the so called 'junk' DNA), may be an ideal source for these biomarkers. In this chapter, the potential use of microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs as biomarkers will be discussed.
Keywords: BC200; Circulating miRNAs; Her2neu/ERBB2; Long non coding RNA; MiRNAS and breast cancer; let-7 miRNA; miR-10b; miR-145; miR-16; miR-195; miR-200 family; miR-21; miR-29; miR-31; miR-335; miR-451; miR-9; microRNA.