Integrative analysis of mRNA, miRNA and lncRNA profiles reveals the commonness between bladder cancer and breast cancer

BACKGROUND: Urinary bladder cancer (BLCA) and breast cancer (BRCA) are two cancers which are the most common cause of death. Recent studies have found that BLCA and BRCA shared commonness on many areas, such as biological mechanism, molecular subtypes and clinical stage. Therefore, a mature knowledge of BRCA can help highlight the treatment and prognosis of BLCA. METHODS: To address this issue, we performed a comprehensive integrative analysis to investigate the similarity between both cancers. Firstly, functional enrichment analysis based on differently expressed transcripts was performed. Secondly, PPI network analysis was performed to identify some hub genes in both cancers. Thirdly, the machine learning method was applied to construct cancer predictor. Finally, competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks of both cancers were constructed by applying the integrated method. RESULTS: The functional enrichment analysis showed that ECM-receptor interaction, Focal adhesion, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway were significantly pathways shared by BLCA and BRCA. From the PPI networks analysis, we identified some potential biomarkers shared by both cancers, such as CCNB1, CDC20, BUB2 and so on. The mRNA type and lncRNA type cancer predictor with good classifying performance were generated with machine learning approach, and some mRNA and lncRNA that contribute to cancer diagnostic were identified. By construct ceRNA networks, we identified some common cancer-associated ceRNA pairs, which may be helpful to uncover the relationship between two cancers. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings enhance the understanding of the various molecular signatures and commonalities shared by BLCA and BRCA, suggesting that BLCA may be particularly responsive to some treatments for BRCA.