MicroRNA-221/222 Confers Tamoxifen Resistance in Breast Cancer by Targeting p27Kip1

We explored the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in acquiring resistance to tamoxifen, a drug successfully used to treat women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. miRNA microarray analysis of MCF-7 cell lines that are either sensitive (parental) or resistant (4-hydroxytamoxifen-resistant (OHTR)) to tamoxifen showed significant (> 1.8-fold) up-regulation of eight miRNAs and marked down-regulation (> 50%) of seven miRNAs in OHTR cells compared with parental MCF-7cells. Increased expression of three of the most promising up-regulated (miR-221, miR-222, and miR181) and down-regulated (miR-21, miR-342, and miR-489) miRNAs was validated by real-time reverse transcription-PCR. The expression of miR-221 and miR-222 was also significantly (2-fold) elevated in HER2/neu-positive primary human breast cancer tissues that are known to be resistant to endocrine therapy compared with HER2/neu-negative tissue samples. Ectopic expression of miR-221/222 rendered the parental MCF-7 cells resistant to tamoxifen. The protein level of the cell cycle inhibitor p27(Kip1), a known target of miR-221/222, was reduced by 50% in OHTR cells and by 28-50% in miR-221/222-overexpressing MCF-7 cells. Furthermore, overexpression of p27(Kip1) in the resistant OHTR cells caused enhanced cell death when exposed to tamoxifen. This is the first study demonstrating a relationship between miR-221/222 expression and HER2/neu overexpression in primary breast tumors that are generally resistant to tamoxifen therapy. This finding also provides the rationale for the application of altered expression of specific miRNAs as a predictive tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer marker.