Department of Transfusion, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Neoplasma. 2012;59(3):310-5. doi: 10.4149/neo_2012_040.
It is hypothesized that "cancer stem cells" are responsible for the resistance to chemotherapy of cancer cells in ovarian cancers. The objective of the studies was to explore if the stem cell biomarkers could be used to predict the tumor chemotherapy-resistance in serous ovarian cancer patients. Expression of two putative stem cell markers CD133 and nestin, and vascular epithelial growth factor (VEGF) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) were detected in 123 cases of advanced serous ovarian cancer specimens by immunohistochemistry. To estimate intra-tumoral microvessel density (MVD), CD34 immunostaining was also performed. CD133 and nestin were defined to be positive in 35.0% and 32.5% of the serous ovarian carcinoma tissues, respectively. It was observed that overexpression of nestin but not CD133 was associated with the cisplatin-based chemotherapy resistance and shorter overall survival of the patients, and nestin was found to be an independent prognostic factor. Moreover, positive nestin expression also correlated to increased expression of EGFR and VEGF, and elevated MVD in tumors. The results of this study suggest that serous ovarian cancers with high expression level of nestin represent an aggressive malignant phenotype associated with poor prognosis, and treatment targeted the nestin positive cancer cells might be a promising therapeutic strategy for this subgroups.
据推测，“癌症干细胞”是卵巢癌中癌细胞对化疗耐药的原因。这些研究的目的是探索干细胞标志物是否可用于预测浆液性卵巢癌患者的肿瘤化疗耐药性。通过免疫组织化学法检测了 123 例晚期浆液性卵巢癌标本中两种假定的干细胞标志物 CD133 和巢蛋白以及血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）和表皮生长因子受体（EGFR）的表达。为了评估肿瘤内微血管密度（MVD），还进行了 CD34 免疫染色。CD133 和巢蛋白在 35.0％和 32.5％的浆液性卵巢癌组织中分别呈阳性。观察到巢蛋白的过表达而不是 CD133 与基于顺铂的化疗耐药性和患者的总生存期缩短有关，并且巢蛋白被发现是独立的预后因素。此外，巢蛋白的阳性表达还与 EGFR 和 VEGF 的表达增加以及肿瘤中 MVD 的升高相关。这项研究的结果表明，巢蛋白高表达的浆液性卵巢癌代表与预后不良相关的侵袭性恶性表型，针对巢蛋白阳性癌细胞的治疗可能是该亚组的一种有前途的治疗策略。
