Premium
SET complex in serous epithelial ovarian cancer
Author(s) -
Ouellet Véronique,
Page Cécile Le,
Guyot MarieClaude,
Lussier Christian,
Tonin Patricia N.,
Provencher Diane M.,
MesMasson AnneMarie
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.22054
Subject(s) - serous fluid , immunohistochemistry , ovarian cancer , context (archaeology) , disease , cancer research , cancer , biology , stage (stratigraphy) , medicine , oncology , pathology , paleontology
With low cure rates but increasing diverse treatment options that provide variable remission times, ovarian cancer is increasingly being recognized as a chronic disease. This reality indicates the need for a better understanding of factors influencing disease progression. In a previous global analysis of gene expression, we identified genes differentially expressed when comparing serous epithelial ovarian tumors of low and high malignant potential (grade 0 vs grade 3). In this analysis, 4 out of 5 members of the SET complex, SET, APE1, NM23 and HMGB2, were highly expressed in invasive grade 3 tumors. To further investigate the expression of these genes and the fifth member of the SET complex (pp32), we performed immunohistochemistry, on a tissue array composed of 235 serous tumors of different grades and disease stages. A significant correlation between expression of all SET complex proteins and the tumor differentiation was observed ( p < 0.05). When combining all tumors, overexpression of Nm23 ( p = 0.04), Set ( p = 0.004) and Ape1 ( p = 0.004) was associated with the clinical stage of the disease. No marker by itself was associated with prognosis. The combination of a high level of Nm23 in the context of a low level of Set compared to all other combinations of these markers did confer a better prognosis ( p = 0.03). When combined, high expression of Hmgb2 and low expression of Ape1 was also associated with patient prognosis ( p = 0.05). These findings suggest that a strategy that sums the activities of different partners within a pathway may be more appropriate in designing nomograms for patient stratification. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.