Immunohistochemical expression of p16 in ovarian tumors can guide the diagnosis of metastasis from HPV-related cervical cancer, but p16 positivity is nonspecific.
The present study aimed to examine the associations between the protein and mRNA expression levels of ovarian cancer gene 1 (OVCA1), cyclin D1 and p16 and high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) infection in cervical lesions.
Odds ratio (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were calculated to determine the strength of association between p16INK4a promoter methylation and ovarian cancer.
It was found that the risk of E-cadherin hypermethylation was 1.347-fold, while risk of p15 hypermethylation was 1.543-fold and p16 was 1.2-fold among patients with ovarian cancer than that among patients with benign ovarian lesions.
To investigate both the presence of numerical abnormalities of chromosome 9 and p16 gene alterations in ovarian cancer, we studied 28 cases by the fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique using a DNA p16 probe and an a-satellite probe specific for chromosome 9.
Occurrence of childhood tumors in hereditary cancer syndromes such as BRCA1/2 associated breast and ovarian cancer, DNA-mismatch repair (MMR) genes associated hereditary non polyposis colorectal cancer and CDKN2A associated familial malignant melanoma are very little studied.
Our results suggest that epigenetic alterations in p15INK4b but not p16INK4a have an important role in ovarian carcinogenesis and that mechanisms other than methylation may exist to reduce gene expression of p15INK4b in ovarian cancer.
The TOV-21G, TOV-81D, OV-90, and TOV-112D cell lines were derived from ovarian tumors (TOV) or ascites (OV) from chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-naive patients and were characterized by their mutation spectrum of BRCA2, TGFbeta-RII, KRAS2, TP53, and CDKN2A.
These results suggest that deletion of p16/CDKN2 and/or p15/MTS2 is a potential indicator for poor chemotherapy response and adverse prognosis in ovarian cancer patients.
We introduced the wild-type p16(INK4a), p21(WAF1/Cip-1), and p53 genes into the ovarian cancer cell lines SK-OV-3 (p16(INK4a) and p53 null) and OVCA-420 (p16(INK4a) and p53 wild-type) by adenoviral transfection.
These data suggest that the CDKN2A gene is involved in the tumorigenesis of ovarian cancer, but the mechanisms of CDKN2A gene inactivation in serous papillary ovarian cancer remains unclear.
Increased expression of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 2 (CDKN2A) gene product P16INK4A in ovarian cancer is associated with progression and unfavourable prognosis.
In conclusion, homozygous deletions, mutations and the de novo methylation of 5' CpG island are not frequent modes of inactivation of the CDKN2A gene in ovarian cancer.