BACKGROUND
Ovarian cancer commonly presents at a late stage and is associated with poor prognosis. The most common histological subtype is serous ovarian
carcinoma.
Dual-specificity phosphatase 2 (DUSP2) is a
protein phosphatase and substrate for
mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) with increased expression levels in
malignancy. This study aimed to evaluate the expression of DUSP2 in
tumor tissues from patients with serous ovarian
carcinoma and the association with
tumor grade, stage, and patient survival and to investigate the effects of DUSP2 expression in SKOV3 and OVCAR3 cells in vitro. MATERIAL AND METHODS
Tumor tissue and adjacent normal ovarian tissue from 127 patients with histologically confirmed serous ovarian
carcinoma underwent quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry to measure DUSP2
mRNA and
protein expression, respectively.
Tumor grade, stage, and clinicopathological data underwent correlation analysis with DUSP2 expression, and survival data were assessed with Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analysis. The effects of DUSP2 expression on the proliferation and migration of SKOV3 and OVCAR3 cells were evaluated. RESULTS Immunohistochemistry showed that DUSP2 was down-regulated in serous ovarian
carcinoma tissues compared with adjacent ovarian tissues, and was significantly correlated with
tumor stage. Survival analysis showed that DUSP2 expression was an independent risk factor for patient survival. DUSP2 expression in SKOV3 and OVCAR3 cells in vitro suppressed cell proliferation and migration. CONCLUSIONS Down-regulation of DUSP2 expression in serous ovarian
carcinoma was an independent risk factor for patient survival, and its expression in SKOV3 and OVCAR3 cells inhibited cell proliferation and migration in vitro.