Regulatory Interplay between miR-181a-5p and Estrogen Receptor Signaling Cascade in Breast Cancer

Despite huge efforts in breast cancer care programs, patient's survival rates greatly vary. Differences in response to therapy still represent the major challenge for clinicians and biologists. Define new anticancer mechanisms and innovative predictors for resistance could be a valid strategy to permanently defeat breast cancer. Here we propose the epigenetic based reprogramming of breast cancer, which leverages on the crosstalk between miR-181a-5p and Estrogen Receptor alpha. This simultaneously approach allows to induce miR-181a-5p and reduce the receptor expression, blocking the estrogen-dependent proliferative pathway underlying breast cancer progression. Since the epigenetic approach insists on transcriptional regulation, it is mostly independent of the acquired resistance mechanisms typically induced by prolonged endocrine therapy and therefore can be used as a sensitizer, neoadjuvant, or in combination with the standard in care treatments against breast cancer.