Potential role of hsa_circ_0003098 circular RNA in breast cancer and its association with demographic factors and lymph node metastasis

 A growing amount of evidence has revealed that circular RNAs (circRNAs), covalently closed single-stranded non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), play significant roles in initiation and progression of breast cancer (BC) through different mechanisms.  This study aims to investigate the hsa_circ_0003098 expression and its potential roles in BC, as well as the circRNA/miRNA/mRNA crosstalk in these contexts.

Real-time PCR (RT-PCR) was used to assess the expression of hsa_circ_0003098 in the breast tumors compared with adjacent normal tissues. Its association with different demographic and clinicopathological characteristics of BC patients was assessed by statistical analysis. Finally, we used bioinformatic approaches to uncover the potential circRNA/miRNA/mRNA axes using some databases and software.

 Our results revealed that hsa_circ_0003098 expression is significantly upregulated in BC tumors compared with the adjacent normal tissues. Moreover, hsa_circ_0003098 over-expression is significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and hair dye use. Next, we found that this circRNA can regulate key mRNAs and miRNAs in the ceRNA network.

 It is suggested that hsa_circ_0006960, which is significantly up-expressed in breast tumors and associated with lymph node metastasis, could play key roles in the physiopathology of breast cancer through sponging off the miRNAs involved in hsa_circ_0003098/miRNAs/mRNAs network.