Although there is a considerable overlap in OC and BC immunohistochemical profiles, BC usually stain positive for GCDFP-15 and negative for vimentine, PAX8, and WT1, and OC often stain positive for CK7, PAX8, WT1, and to mesothelin.
Conditional homozygous knockout of PTEN mediated by PAX8-cre recombinase was sufficient to drive endometrioid and serous borderline ovarian carcinoma, providing the first model of FTE-derived borderline tumors.
We found that stable knockdown of PAX8 in EOC models significantly reduced cell proliferation and anchorage dependent growth <i>in vitro,</i> and attenuated tumorigenicity <i>in vivo</i>.
We believe that our analysis has led to the identification of candidate genes and pathways regulated by PAX8 that could be additional targets for the therapy of ovarian carcinoma.
Overall, our results indicate that PAX8 plays an important role in the tumorigenic phenotype of ovarian cancer cells and identifies PAX8 as a potential new target for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
These findings support the hypothesis that PAX8 plays parallel roles in the development of epithelial ovarian cancer and in the developmental differentiation of coelomic epithelia into endosalpingeal epithelia.