Breast cancer is one of the most devastating cancers with high morbidity and mortality in females worldwide. Breast tumorigenesis and further development present great uncertainty and complexity, and efficient therapeutic approaches still lack. Accumulating evidence indicates HOX transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is dysregulated in cancers and has emerged as a novel hotspot in the field. In breast cancer, aberrant HOTAIR expression is responsible for advanced tumor progression by regulating multifarious signaling pathways. Besides, HOTAIR may act as competitive endogenous RNA to bind to several microRNAs and suppress their expressions, which can subsequently upregulate the levels of targeted downstream messenger RNAs, thereby leading to further cancer progression. In addition, HOTAIR works as a promising biomarker and predictor for breast cancer patients' diagnosis or outcome prediction. Recently, HOTAIR is potentially considered to be a drug target. Here, we have summarized the induction of HOTAIR in breast cancer and its impacts on cell proliferation, migration, apoptosis, and therapeutic resistance, as well as elucidating the underlying mechanisms. This review aims to provide new insights into investigations between HOTAIR and breast cancer development and inspire new methods for studying the association in depth.
Keywords: HOTAIR; breast cancer; competitive endogenous RNA; lncRNA; progression.