Extracellular vesicles-associated miRNAs in triple-negative breast cancer: from tumor biology to clinical relevance.

ABSTRACT

Breast cancer (BC), a heterogeneous group of diseases, is the most frequent type and the leading cause of cancer-related death among women worldwide. Tumor heterogeneity directly impacts cancer progression and treatment, as evidenced by the patients´ diverse prognosis and treatment responses across the distinct molecular subtypes. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which accounts for 10-20% of all diagnosed BC cases, is an aggressive BC subtype with a challenging prognosis. Current treatment options include systemic chemotherapy and/or target therapies based on PARP and PD-L1 inhibitors for eligible patients. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulatory non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in TNBC tumorigenesis. These molecules are present both intracellularly and released into biofluids, packaged into extracellular vesicles (EVs). Emerging evidence indicates that EVs-associated miRNAs (EVs-miRNAs), transferred from parental to recipient cells, are key mediators of cell-to-cell communication. Considering their stability and abundance in several biofluids, these molecules may reflect the epigenomic composition of their tumors of origin and contribute to mediate tumorigenesis, similar to their intracellular counterparts. This review provides the current knowledge on EVs-miRNAs in the TNBC subtype, focusing on their role in regulating mRNA targets involved in tumor phenotypes and their clinical relevance as promising biomarkers in liquid biopsies.