Background: Long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) Breast cancer anti-estrogen resistance 4 (BCAR4) has been shown to participate in the biological progress of various cancers including breast cancer. Genetic Polymorphisms in BCAR4 may have an influence on the progress of breast cancer, but it is rarely studied.
Methods: In our epidemiology study, three tagging SNPs (rs4561483, rs11649623 and rs13334967) in lncRNA BCAR4 were selected for genotyping among 487 breast cancer cases and 489 healthy controls. And quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was performed to evaluate the relative mRNA expression of BCAR4 in different genotypes of the significant locus rs13334967.
Results: We found that BCAR4 rs13334967 is associated with lower breast cancer risk both in codominant model (AT vs AA, OR 0.632, 95% CI 0.429-0.931, TT vs AA, OR 0.731, 95% CI 0.511-0.990) and dominant model (AT + TT vs AA, OR 0.798, 95% CI 0.571-0.970). The further results of qRT-PCR displayed that carriers with rs13334967 AT, TT genotype have lower BCAR4 mRNA expression compared with AA genotype.
Conclusion: The research study implied that BCAR4 rs13334967 was correlated with the susceptibility to breast cancer and may impact the mRNA expression of BCAR4. LncRNA BCAR4 may be a potential biomarker and therapeutic target for breast cancer.
Keywords: BCAR4; Breast cancer; Expression; Susceptibility; lncRNA.