Abstract 5893: Expression and role of autophagy-associated p62 (SQSTM1) in multidrug-resistant ovarian cancer

Abstract

Abstract Multidrug resistance is the major cause of treatment failure in ovarian cancer. p62 (SQSTM1) is a multifunctional protein involved in multiple cellular processes including proliferation, drug sensitivity and autophagy-associated cancer cell growth. p62 is a critical indicator of autophagic flux, which is inversely associated with autophagy activity. However, the role of p62 remains controversial in drug resistance in human ovarian cancer. In this study, we examined p62 expression by immunohistochemistry in a unique ovarian cancer tissue microarray (TMA), which was constructed with paired primary, metastatic, and recurrent tumor tissues from 26 individual patients. Results showed that both the metastatic and recurrent tumor tissues expressed less p62 than the patient-matched primary tumor. A significant inverse correlation has been found between p62 expression and both the disease free survival and overall survival. In addition, multidrug resistant cancer cell lines expressed lower levels of p62 as compared with their parental drug sensitive cell lines. Importantly, cell viabilities determined by MTT assay after exposure to different concentrations of paclitaxel showed inhibition of autophagy or accumulation of p62 enhances paclitaxel sensitivity in ovarian cancer drug resistant cells. Furthermore, the wound healing assay exhibited that inhibition of autophagy significantly decreased multidrug resistant ovarian cancer cell migration in vitro. Collectively, these data highlight that autophagy pathway may be a promising therapeutic target to prevent metastasis, recurrence and to reverse drug resistance in ovarian cancer. Citation Format: Jinglu Wang, Cassandra Garbutt, Francis J Hornicek, Zhenfeng Duan. Expression and role of autophagy-associated p62 (SQSTM1) in multidrug-resistant ovarian cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5893.