Women's Reproductive Health Key Laboratory of Zhejiang Province, Women's Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Int J Gynecol Cancer. 2010 Aug;20(6):958-64. doi: 10.1111/IGC.0b013e3181e6fee1.
Stage-specific embryonic antigen 4 (SSEA-4) is a widely used marker to monitor the differentiation of pluripotent embryonic stem cells. Little is known about the expression pattern of SSEA-4 in solid tumors up to now.
In this study, we investigated the expression of SSEA-4 in 479 cases of various degrees of ovarian epithelial lesions by immunohistochemistry, consisting of 45 normal ovarian epithelia, 110 benign serous ovarian cystadenomas, 68 borderline serous ovarian cystadenomas, 104 invasive serous ovarian carcinomas, 64 benign serous mucinous cystadenomas, 48 borderline mucinous ovarian cystadenomas, and 40 invasive mucinous carcinomas. Moreover, the association between SSEA-4 expression and clinicopathological parameters was also evaluated.
The expression of SSEA-4 was found to be increased from normal epithelium to benign cystadenoma and to borderline cystadenoma and adenocarcinoma in both serous and mucinous group. The loss or reduction of the expression of SSEA-4 was significantly correlated with more advanced tumor stage and poorer tumor cell differentiation.
We therefore proposed that SSEA-4 may play a role during the oncogenesis of epithelial ovarian carcinoma and posses a tumor suppressor effect during malignancy promotion. It could be a potential therapy target in patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma.
阶段特异性胚胎抗原 4（SSEA-4）是一种广泛用于监测多能胚胎干细胞分化的标志物。到目前为止，关于 SSEA-4 在实体肿瘤中的表达模式知之甚少。
在这项研究中，我们通过免疫组织化学方法研究了 SSEA-4 在 479 例不同程度卵巢上皮病变中的表达情况，其中包括 45 例正常卵巢上皮、110 例良性浆液性卵巢囊腺瘤、68 例交界性浆液性卵巢囊腺瘤、104 例侵袭性浆液性卵巢癌、64 例良性浆液性黏液性囊腺瘤、48 例交界性黏液性卵巢囊腺瘤和 40 例侵袭性黏液性癌。此外，还评估了 SSEA-4 表达与临床病理参数之间的关系。
SSEA-4 的表达从正常上皮到良性囊腺瘤和交界性囊腺瘤再到浆液性和黏液性两组的腺癌均增加。SSEA-4 的表达缺失或减少与更晚期的肿瘤分期和更差的肿瘤细胞分化显著相关。
因此，我们提出 SSEA-4 可能在卵巢上皮癌的发生过程中发挥作用，并在促进恶性肿瘤的过程中具有肿瘤抑制作用。它可能成为上皮性卵巢癌患者的潜在治疗靶点。
