Azumi Maho, Inubushi Sachiko, Yano Yoko, Obata Kenta, Yamanaka Keitaro, Terai Yoshito
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
Cancer Genomics Proteomics. 2025 May-Jun;22(3):382-396. doi: 10.21873/cgp.20508.
BACKGROUND/AIM: Ovarian cancer is asymptomatic in its early stages, and often diagnosed at advanced stages, leading to a high recurrence rate. In recent years, exosomes have been shown to be useful for early-detection, prognosis prediction, and treatment of cancer. Although many studies of cancer-related exosomes using other bodily fluids have been reported, there are few studies examining vaginal discharge, but none related to ovarian cancer. In this study, we investigated a method for early-detection of ovarian cancer using vaginal discharge, which are physically close to the fallopian tubes, where ovarian cancer originates, and can be easily collected from outside the body.
Vaginal discharge was collected from 30 patients with ovarian cancer and 29 patients with benign gynecological diseases, and exosomal miRNAs were extracted. Samples from each group were submitted to miRNA microarray in order to examine miRNAs with significant differences in expression levels. We further narrowed down the list to four miRNAs based on literature and microarray data and examined the expression levels of miRNAs in the malignant and benign groups by RT-qPCR.
MiR-575 expression was significantly decreased in the malignant group compared to the benign group (=0.00861). qPCR results were analyzed for several patient characteristics and no significant differences were found.
This is the first study to investigate exosomal miRNAs in vaginal discharge of ovarian cancer. Exosomal miR-575 in vaginal discharge may be used as a biomarker for ovarian cancer.
背景/目的：卵巢癌在早期通常没有症状，往往在晚期才被诊断出来，导致复发率很高。近年来，外泌体已被证明可用于癌症的早期检测、预后预测和治疗。虽然已经报道了许多使用其他体液进行的与癌症相关外泌体的研究，但很少有研究检测阴道分泌物，且没有与卵巢癌相关的研究。在本研究中，我们研究了一种利用阴道分泌物早期检测卵巢癌的方法，阴道分泌物在生理位置上靠近卵巢癌起源的输卵管，并且可以很容易地从体外采集。
收集30例卵巢癌患者和29例良性妇科疾病患者的阴道分泌物，提取外泌体miRNA。对每组样本进行miRNA微阵列检测，以检查表达水平有显著差异的miRNA。我们根据文献和微阵列数据将列表进一步缩小到4种miRNA，并通过RT-qPCR检测恶性组和良性组中miRNA的表达水平。
与良性组相比，恶性组中miR-575的表达显著降低（P=0.00861）。对几个患者特征的qPCR结果进行分析，未发现显著差异。
这是第一项研究卵巢癌阴道分泌物中外泌体miRNA的研究。阴道分泌物中的外泌体miR-575可能用作卵巢癌的生物标志物。
