The apparent restriction of these BRAF and KRAS mutations to low-grade serous ovarian carcinoma and its precursors suggests that low-grade and high-grade ovarian serous carcinomas develop through independent pathways.
Preliminary evidence of clinical activity was observed with gedatolisib plus PD-0325901 in patients with ovarian cancer (three partial responses, n = 5) or endometrial cancer (one partial response, n = 1) and KRAS mutations.
Additionally, RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK pathway-targeted therapy may benefit selected patients with type II ovarian carcinoma harboring KRAS/MAPK1 amplifications.
An assay for the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs61764370, has recently been commercially marketed as a clinical test to aid ovarian cancer risk evaluation in women with family histories of the disease. rs67164370 is in a 3'-UTR miRNA binding site of the KRAS oncogene and is a candidate for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) susceptibility.
Our findings strongly support the hypothesis that the KRAS-variant is a genetic marker for increased risk of developing OC, and they suggest that the KRAS-variant may be a new genetic marker of cancer risk for HBOC families without other known genetic abnormalities.
Next, to clarify the roles of ERK1/2 activation in ovarian cancers harbouring KRAS or BRAF mutations, we inactivated ERK1/2 in ovarian cancer cells using CI-1040.
Thus, K-RAS mutations at codon 12 and 6q27 LOH were suggested to be involved in the development and/or progression of mucinous ovarian carcinoma and serous ovarian carcinoma, respectively.
Mutations in BRAF and KRAS genes are the most frequent genetic aberrations found in low-grade serous ovarian carcinomas and serous and mucinous borderline tumors.
Recently, a variant allele in the 3'UTR of the KRAS gene (rs61764370 T>G) was shown to be associated with an increased risk for developing non-small cell lung cancer, as well as ovarian cancer, and was most enriched in ovarian cancer patients from hereditary breast and ovarian cancer families.
We found no evidence of disease association for SNPs in BRAF, KRAS, ERBB2 and PIK3CA when OC was considered as a single disease phenotype; but after stratification by histological subtype, we found borderline evidence of association for SNPs in KRAS and BRAF with mucinous OC and in ERBB2 and PIK3CA with endometrioid OC.
Together, REDD1 and p-AKT over-expression may serve as a prognostic biomarker in OC, but KRAS mutations and REDD1 protein over-expression were not correlated in OC.
Our results define the RAS/MEK/DNMT1 pathway as a determinant of sensitivity to DNA methyltransferase inhibition, specifically implicating KRAS status as a biomarker of drug response in ovarian cancer.
Populations of endometrial and endometriotic epithelial cells also harbor multiple cancer driver mutations, such as KRAS, which may be associated with the establishment of pelvic endometriosis or ovarian cancer.
VEGF concentrations in ascites significantly increased in c-MYC-induced ovarian cancer, whereas the concentrations of inflammatory cytokines in ascites were significantly high in KRAS-induced ovarian cancer and were accompanied by an increased number of neutrophils in ascites.
This suggests that mutation of the nm23 genes and the K-ras gene affects carcinogenesis or progression of ovarian carcinoma by modulating expression of the nm23 genes.