Overexpression of MAPT-AS1 is associated with better patient survival in breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most frequent malignant disease in women worldwide. It is a heterogeneous and complex genetic disease with different molecular characteristics. MAPT-AS1, a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) existing at the anti-sense strand of the MAPT (microtubule associated protein tau) promoter region, was believed to regulate MAPT, which was associated with disease state in Parkinson's disease. But the role of MAPT-AS1 in breast cancer has never been reported. In our study we found that MAFF-AS1 is overexpressed in breast cancer but not in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), and that high expression of MAPT-AS1 was correlated with better patient survival. In addition, the level of MAPT-AS1 was correlated with the expression of MAPT, and MAPT was associated with survival time in breast cancer. Our study suggests that MAPT-AS1 may play a role and be a potential survival predictive biomarker in breast cancer.