The SKOV-3 ovarian carcinoma cell line, one of the only models for HER2-driven ovarian cancer, expresses a major uncharacterized 8-kb alternative HER-2 transcript.
Amplification or overexpression of HER2/neu occurs in about 30% of human breast and ovarian cancers and is associated with a poor clinical outcome, including short survival time and short time to relapse.
Together, these data indicate that HER2 represents an important oncogene in ovarian cancer, and suggest that targeting this tyrosine kinase with T-DM1 may be therapeutically effective, especially in ovarian tumors with high content of HER2.
Further, when tested in vivo in a HER-2-overexpressing ovarian cancer xenograft mouse model, enzymatically generated trastuzumab-maytansine was found to lead to complete regression of established tumors, similar to Kadcyla.
Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/ERBB2) gene amplification is associated with benefit from taxane therapy in breast cancer yet high HER2 expression also correlates with poor survival in both breast and ovarian cancer.
Overexpression of HER-2/neu, a 185-kDa tyrosine kinase growth factor receptor, in human ovarian cancers has been correlated with a poor prognosis for survival of the disease.
Although heparanase activity seems to play an essential role in tumor progression, expression of oncogenes, such as erbB2 and Mdm2 seems to play the dominant role in the development of ovarian cancer.
Overexpression of the HER2/neu oncogene (also known as c-erbB2) is a frequent molecular event in multiple human cancers, including breast and ovarian cancer.
PET imaging and biodistribution studies in subcutaneous models of ovarian cancer were performed for non-invasive in vivo evaluation of HER2 expression.
The aim of the multicenter study is to investigate the correlation between the expression of estrogen alpha receptors (ERα), progesterone receptors (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF1) and its receptor C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4), breast cancer metastasis suppressor 1 (BRMS1), astrocyte elevated gene 1 (AEG1), depending on the status of BRCA1 protein, in patients suffering from OC and BC with brain metastases.
The results showed that the promoter regions involved in ERBB2 gene overexpression in breast cancer cells are different from those that lead to the gene upregulation in colon and ovary cancers.