o:38692 Bioinformatics Analysis of microRNAs Associated with Metastatic Potential in Breast Cancer en ABSTRACT Dysregulation of microRNA expression in breast cancer (BC) has been associated with molecular disturbances involved in cancer initiation, progression and metastasis. Specific microRNAs also act as endocrine modulators in BC, thereby influencing the biological behavior of the tumor and drug responses. Our objective was to employ bioinformatics tools to identify and characterize microRNAs acting as candidate players involved in epithelial–mesenchymal transition, migration, invasion, and/or hormonal regulation in BC. We systematically integrated microRNA profiling data from three different studies on BC cell lines with different invasive capabilities and from another study on lymph node metastases and matching primary BC, resulting in five microRNA hits-DE-microRNAs miR-146a-5p, miR-222-3p, miR-205-5p, miR-141-3p and miR-200c-3p. This set of microRNAs was evaluated for clinical significance in BC and subjected to target prediction, microRNA-mRNA network construction, functional enrichment analysis and quantification in BC cell lines by qPCR. An upregulated DE-microRNA, miR-222-3p, displayed distinctive pro-metastatic features, supported by its clinical relevance, as well as by the results of the functional enrichment analysis of its target genes. Downregulation of the members of the miR-200 family and miR-205-5p were significantly associated with negative clinical features, while their targets were enriched with genes that were relevant to cancer aggressiveness. These results are in line with the presumed functional relevance of the selected DE-microRNAs in BC. microRNA; breast cancer; invasion; epithelial-mesenchymal transition; migration; metastasis; miR-222-3p; miR-205-5p; miR-141-3p; miR-200c-3p 1552099 10.3390/biology15080617 2026-04-21T08:09:57.228Z 44 yes 46 Aleksandra Nikezić Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia Sanja Goč University of Belgrade, Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy INEP, Belgrade, Serbia doktor biohemijskih nauka person 0000-0002-6104-693X Jovana Stevanović University of Belgrade, Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy INEP, Belgrade, Serbia person 0000-0002-3619-8472 Miloš Brkušanin Centre for Human Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia person Olgica Nedić University of Belgrade, Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy INEP, Belgrade, Serbia doktor biohemijskih nauka person 0000-0003-2042-0056 Jovana Jovankić Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia person Zorana Dobrijević University of Belgrade, Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy INEP, Belgrade, Serbia doktor nauka-biološke nauke person 0000-0002-4652-7719 application/pdf 14208107 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:38692 no yes 16 70 92000001 11A29 11A2905 11A02 Biology 15 8 MDPI, Basel, Switzerland 2026