Rohozinski Jan, Anderson Matthew L, Broaddus Russell E, Edwards Creighton L, Bishop Colin E
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
PLoS One. 2009;4(3):e5064. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005064. Epub 2009 Mar 31.
Ovarian cancer is the second most prevalent gynecologic cancer in women. However, it is by far the most lethal. This is generally attributed to the absence of easily detectable markers specific to ovarian cancers that can be used for early diagnosis and specific therapeutic targets.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using end point PCR we have found that a family of retrogenes, previously thought to be expressed only in the male testis during spermatogenesis in man, are also expressed in normal ovarian tissue and a large percentage of ovarian cancers. In man there are at least eleven such autosomal retrogenes, which are intronless copies of genes on the X chromosome, essential for normal spermatogenesis and expressed specifically in the human testis. We tested for the expression of five of the known retrogenes, UTP14C, PGK2, RPL10L, RPL39L and UBL4B in normal human ovary and ovarian cancers.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We propose that the activation of the testis specific retrogenes in the ovary and ovarian cancers is of biological significance in humans. Because these retrogenes are specifically expressed in the ovary and ovarian cancers in the female they may prove useful in developing new diagnostic and/or therapeutic targets for ovarian cancer.
卵巢癌是女性中第二常见的妇科癌症。然而，它是迄今为止最致命的。这通常归因于缺乏可用于早期诊断和特定治疗靶点的、卵巢癌特有的易于检测的标志物。
方法/主要发现：通过终点聚合酶链反应，我们发现了一个反转录基因家族，该家族以前被认为仅在男性精子发生过程中的睾丸中表达，现在发现其也在正常卵巢组织和大部分卵巢癌中表达。在人类中，至少有11个这样的常染色体反转录基因，它们是X染色体上基因的无内含子拷贝，对正常精子发生至关重要且在人类睾丸中特异性表达。我们检测了5个已知反转录基因UTP14C、PGK2、RPL10L、RPL39L和UBL4B在正常人类卵巢和卵巢癌中的表达情况。
结论/意义：我们提出，卵巢和卵巢癌中睾丸特异性反转录基因的激活在人类中具有生物学意义。由于这些反转录基因在女性的卵巢和卵巢癌中特异性表达，它们可能在开发卵巢癌新的诊断和/或治疗靶点方面有用。
