Abstract
Late diagnosis, unreliable prognostic assessment, and poorly-guided therapeutic planning result in dismal survival of ovarian cancer (OC) patients. Therefore, identifying novel functional biomarker(s) is highly desired for improved clinical management. MYB is an oncogenic transcription factor with emerging functional significance in OC. Here we examined its clinicopathologic significance by immunohistochemistry and TCGA/GTex data analyses. Aberrant MYB expression was detected in 94% of OC cases (n = 373), but not in the normal ovarian tissues (n = 23). MYB was overexpressed in all major epithelial OC histological subtypes exhibiting the highest incidence (~ 97%) and overall expression in serous and mucinous carcinomas. MYB expression correlated positively with tumor grades and stages. Moreover, MYB exhibited race-specific prognostic association. Moderate-to-high MYB levels were significantly associated with both poor overall- (p = 0.02) and progression-free (p = 0.02) survival in African American (AA), but not in the Caucasian American (CA) patients. Consistent with immunohistochemistry data, we observed significantly higher MYB transcripts in OC cases (n = 426) than normal ovary (n = 88). MYB transcripts were significantly higher in all epithelial OC subtypes, compared to normal, and its greater levels predicted poor survival in AA OC, but not CA OC, patients. Thus, MYB appears to be a useful clinical biomarker for prognostication, especially in AA patients.
Highlights
Late diagnosis, unreliable prognostic assessment, and poorly-guided therapeutic planning result in dismal survival of ovarian cancer (OC) patients
We examined if the MYB expression varied between OC cases from Caucasian American (CA) and AA patients but did not observe any significant difference (Supplementary Figure S1)
Identification of functional biomarkers associating with disease aggressiveness and clinical outcomes could allow for better therapeutic planning, disease monitoring, and the development of novel targeted therapeutics
Summary
Unreliable prognostic assessment, and poorly-guided therapeutic planning result in dismal survival of ovarian cancer (OC) patients. MYB was overexpressed in all major epithelial OC histological subtypes exhibiting the highest incidence (~ 97%) and overall expression in serous and mucinous carcinomas. MYB transcripts were significantly higher in all epithelial OC subtypes, compared to normal, and its greater levels predicted poor survival in AA OC, but not CA OC, patients. While the five-year survival rate has improved for CA women in the past decade, it has worsened in AA women with an ovarian cancer diagnosis[5]. Underlying causes of such disparity are unclear, but a late diagnosis and the lack of therapeutic options for the advanced disease are considered prime reasons for the overall grim prognosis of OC. Information on MYB functions in OC pathobiology has begun to emerge r ecently[20,21], underscoring the need to study its expression pattern and clinicopathologic significance in OC
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