title: Decoding the usefulness of non-coding RNAs as breast cancer markers.
abstract: Although important advances in the management of breast cancer (BC) have been recently accomplished, it still constitutes the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. BC is a heterogeneous and complex disease, making clinical prediction of outcome a very challenging task. In recent years, gene expression profiling emerged as a tool to assist in clinical decision, enabling the identification of genetic signatures that better predict prognosis and response to therapy. Nevertheless, translation to routine practice has been limited by economical and technical reasons and, thus, novel biomarkers, especially those requiring non-invasive or minimally invasive collection procedures, while retaining high sensitivity and specificity might represent a significant development in this field. An increasing amount of evidence demonstrates that non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), particularly microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), are aberrantly expressed in several cancers, including BC. miRNAs are of particular interest as new, easily accessible, cost-effective and non-invasive tools for precise management of BC patients because they circulate in bodily fluids (e.g., serum and plasma) in a very stable manner, enabling BC assessment and monitoring through liquid biopsies. This review focus on how ncRNAs have the potential to answer present clinical needs in the personalized management of patients with BC and comprehensively describes the state of the art on the role of ncRNAs in the diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to therapy in BC.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Biology and Epigenetics Group, IPO Porto Research Center (CI-IPOP), Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPOPorto), Research Center-LAB 3, F Bdg, 1st floor, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto (ICBAS-UP), Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amorim
authors.affiliation: Cancer Biology and Epigenetics Group, IPO Porto Research Center (CI-IPOP), Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPOPorto), Research Center-LAB 3, F Bdg, 1st floor, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto (ICBAS-UP), Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Salta
authors.affiliation: Cancer Biology and Epigenetics Group, IPO Porto Research Center (CI-IPOP), Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPOPorto), Research Center-LAB 3, F Bdg, 1st floor, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal.|Department of Pathology, Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal.|Department of Pathology and Molecular Immunology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto (ICBAS-UP), Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Henrique
authors.affiliation: Cancer Biology and Epigenetics Group, IPO Porto Research Center (CI-IPOP), Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPOPorto), Research Center-LAB 3, F Bdg, 1st floor, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal. carmenjeronimo@ipoporto.min-saude.pt.|Department of Pathology and Molecular Immunology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto (ICBAS-UP), Porto, Portugal. carmenjeronimo@ipoporto.min-saude.pt.
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4186-5345
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jerónimo
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011379:Prognosis; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding
keywords: Biomarkers; Diagnostic; Long nonconding RNA; Prognostic; microRNA