We found that high serum HB-EGF concentrations were significantly associated with poor prognosis in a combined cohort of patients with all stages of ovarian cancer, as well as in a subset of patients with advanced disease.
HER3 is a member of the epidermal growth factor family and was predominantly described as a negative prognostic factor in various solid tumors as well as in ovarian cancer.
Collectively, HB-EGF is a molecular target for the resistance of ovarian cancer to paclitaxel and CRM197 as a HB-EGF-targeted agent might be a chemosensitizing agent for paclitaxel-resistant ovarian carcinoma.
Taken together, our data provide evidence that TNFR1 plays a critical role in ovarian cancer and show that the EGF induced signaling pathway is independent of the TNF-α triggering cascade signal.
Pharmacological inhibition of c-Myc reduced HB-EGF induced glycolytic enzymes implicating a major role of c-Myc in loss of HSulf-1 mediated altered glycolytic pathway in OVCA.
In the present study, to investigate the mechanisms of the regulation of tight junctions in ovarian cancers, ovarian cancer cell lines mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (MCAS) and serous cystadenocarcinoma (HUOA) were treated with EGF.
Epidermal growth factor (EGF) activation of the EGF receptor (EGFR) is an important mediator of cell migration, and aberrant signaling via this system promotes a number of malignancies including ovarian cancer.
These data suggest that EGF-related peptides function as autocrine growth factors in ovarian carcinoma cells, and that they might represent targets for experimental therapy of ovarian carcinoma.
All these data are consistent with E2 increasing production of TGFalpha in ER-positive ovarian cancer and this in turn acting through the EGF receptor to modulate growth in an autocrine manner.
In addition, some proto-oncogenes such as the EGF receptor (erbB) and the M-CSF receptor (fms) are expressed along with their respective ligands in some ovarian cancers.
EGF-R or TGFa expressing ovarian carcinomas had a high response rate to chemotherapy, whereas the EGF-R or TGFa negative tumors mostly exhibit a no change or progressive disease behaviour.