Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Monastir, Tunisia Laboratory of Biochemistry, CHU Farhat Hached Sousse, Tunisia.
Dis Markers. 2010;28(6):385-94. doi: 10.3233/DMA-2010-0719.
CA125 is a tumor antigen used to monitor the progression and regression of epithelial ovarian cancer. Despite the widespread use of CA125, the biochemical and molecular nature of this antigen is poorly understood. Analysis of the structure of CA125 is essential for determining the physiological role of this very significant tumor marker. Accumulated experimental evidence has shown that CA125 epitopes reside on a molecule of very complex architecture in terms of both protein backbone and oligosaccharide structures. It is not clear whether the heterogeneity of CA125 molecular characteristics are due to the variability of biological sources from which the molecule was isolated or to the different biophysical methods used for the characterization of all the oligosaccharides linked to CA125 or to the presence of glycoisoforms for this protein. This review attempts to summarize emerging data related to molecular characteristics of CA125 and to compare approaches undertaken to reach a better understanding of molecular features of this tumor marker.
CA125 是一种用于监测上皮性卵巢癌进展和消退的肿瘤抗原。尽管 CA125 被广泛应用，但这种抗原的生化和分子性质仍知之甚少。分析 CA125 的结构对于确定这个非常重要的肿瘤标志物的生理作用至关重要。积累的实验证据表明，CA125 表位位于一种非常复杂的分子结构上，无论是在蛋白质骨架还是糖链结构方面。目前尚不清楚 CA125 分子特征的异质性是由于该分子分离的生物来源的可变性，还是由于用于鉴定与 CA125 相连的所有糖链的不同生物物理方法，或者是由于该蛋白存在糖型。本文综述了与 CA125 分子特征相关的最新数据，并比较了为更好地了解该肿瘤标志物的分子特征而采用的方法。
