Expression and clinical significance of kallikrein 7 in ovarian epithelial cancers

Abstract

Objective To observe the relationship between the expression of kallikrein (KLK7) and human ovarian epithelial cancer,investiagate the pathogenesis of ovarian epithelial cancer,the related genes function,and find out the new index for early diagnosis and prognosis detection of ovarian epithelial cancer.Methods Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method and agarose gel electrophoresis were employed to detecte the expression of kallikrein 7 (KLK7) in human normal ovarian tissues,benign tumor tissues and epithelial ovarian cancers.Results The positive expression rate of KLK7 in normal ovarian tissues was zero.The positive expression rate of KLK7 in epithelial ovarian cancers was 77.50％ (31/40),which was higher than that in benign tumor(22.73％,10/44),there was significant difference (P ＜ 0.01).And the positive expression rate of KLK7 in epithelial ovarian cancer with node metastasis was 91.67％ (22/24),which was higher than that in epithelial ovarian cancer without node metastasis(56.25％,9/16),there was significant difference (P ＜0.05).But there was no significant difference in KLK7 expression of ovarian tissues between different clinical stages and histological grades.Conclusions The expression rate of KLK7 in normal ovarian tissues is zero.The expression of KLK7 in ovarian epithelial cancer tissues is higher,especially in the ovarian cancer tissues with lymph node metastasis.So KLK7 maybe a new epithelial ovarian tumor markers that can predict the prognosis of the patients. Key words: Ovarian neoplasm; Kallikrein 7 ; Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction