Patients with advanced
epithelial ovarian cancer often experience disease recurrence after standard
therapies, a critical factor in determining their five-year survival rate. Recent reports indicated that long-term or short-term survival is associated with varied gene expression of
cancer cells. Thus, identification of novel prognostic
biomarkers should be considered. Since the mouse genome is similar to the human genome, we explored potential prognostic
biomarkers using two groups of mouse
ovarian cancer cell lines (group 1:
IG-10, IG-10pw, and IG-10pw/
agar; group 2:
IG-10 clones 2, 3, and 11) which display highly and moderately aggressive phenotypes in vivo. Mice injected with these cell lines have different survival time and rates, capacities of
tumor, and
ascites formations, reflecting different prognostic potentials. Using an Affymetrix Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array, a total of 181 genes were differentially expressed (P < 0.01) by at least twofold between two groups of the cell lines. Of the 181 genes, 109 and 72 genes were overexpressed in highly and moderately aggressive cell lines, respectively. Analysis of the 109 and 72 genes using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) tool revealed two
cancer-related gene networks. One was associated with the highly aggressive cell lines and affiliated with MYC gene, and another was associated with the moderately aggressive cell lines and affiliated with the
androgen receptor (AR). Finally, the gene enrichment analysis indicated that the overexpressed 89 genes (out of 109 genes) in highly aggressive cell lines had a function annotation in the David database. The
cancer-relevant significant gene ontology (GO) terms included Cell cycle,
DNA metabolic process, and Programmed cell death. None of the genes from a set of the 72 genes overexpressed in the moderately aggressive cell lines had a function annotation in the David database. Our results suggested that the overexpressed MYC and 109 gene set represented highly aggressive
ovarian cancer potential
biomarkers while overexpressed AR and 72 gene set represented moderately aggressive
ovarian cancer potential
biomarkers. Based on our knowledge, the current study is first time to report the potential
biomarkers relevant to different aggressive
ovarian cancer. These potential
biomarkers provide important information for investigating human
ovarian cancer prognosis.