Molecular subtypes of serous borderline ovarian tumor show distinct expression patterns of benign tumor and malignant tumor-associated signatures

Borderline ovarian tumors show heterogeneity in clinical behavior. Most have excellent prognosis, although a small percentage show recurrence or progressive disease, usually to low-grade serous carcinoma. The aim of this study was to understand the molecular relationship between these entities and identify potential markers of tumor progression and therapeutic targets. We studied gene expression using Affymetrix HGU133plus2 GeneChip microarrays in 3 low-grade serous carcinomas, 13 serous borderline tumors and 8 serous cystadenomas. An independent data set of 18 serous borderline tumors and 3 low-grade serous carcinomas was used for validation. Unsupervised clustering revealed clear separation of benign and malignant tumors, whereas borderline tumors showed two distinct groups, one clustering with benign and the other with malignant tumors. The segregation into benign- and malignant-like borderline molecular subtypes was reproducible on applying the same analysis to an independent publicly available data set. We identified 50 genes that separate borderline tumors into their subgroups. Functional enrichment analysis of genes that separate borderline tumors to the two subgroups highlights a cell adhesion signature for the malignant-like subset, with Claudins particularly prominent. This is the first report of molecular subtypes of borderline tumors based on gene expression profiling. Our results provide the basis for identification of biomarkers for the malignant potential of borderline ovarian tumor and potential therapeutic targets for low-grade serous carcinoma.