Therapeutic Potential of miR-29a in Breast Cancer Patients with type 2 Diabetes and its Regulatory Mechanism

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) acting as tumour suppressors or oncogenes (oncomiRs), are a promising new focus of targeted therapeutics for cancer. Diabetes preexisted in approximately 16% of breast cancer patients. This study mainly aims to investigate the therapeutic potential of miR-29a in breast cancer patients with type 2 diabetes (BDM) and its regulatory mechanism. Our results indicated that miR-29a is upregulated in BDM patients, which was correlated with worse prognosis. In human breast cancer cells, miR-29a knockdown reduced cell proliferation, cells migration and invasion in BDM conditions (25 mmol/L glucose + 25 nmol/L insulin). In xenograft mouse model for BDM, miR-29a knockdown suppresses MDA-MB-231 cells tumourigenesis and metastasis. Finally,we demonstrated that miR-29a promoted cell growth and metastasis of BDM via targeting of SIRT1.Collectively, our findings indicated that anti-miR-29a inhibited cell proliferation and invasion in BDM by targeted SIRT1, anti-miR-29a may represent a novel therapeutic approach for the management of BDM patients.