Abstract
BackgroundClass III β-tubulin, Sox2, and Survivin play important roles in tumor survival and proliferation. However, the association of these three factors with clinicopathological characteristics, chemoresistance, and survival in patients with ovarian cancer remains controversial.MethodsWe investigated the predictive value and correlation among the expression levels of Class III β-tubulin, Sox2, and Survivin in 110 patients with stage III ovarian epithelial cancer, including 58 patients who received taxane-based chemotherapy and 52 patients who received non-taxane-based chemotherapy. Expression of these three factors was immunohistochemically examined in 110 ovarian tumor tissues obtained from patients before chemotherapy.ResultsThe positive expression rates for Class III β-tubulin, Sox2, and Survivin in ovarian tumor tissues were 59.09 %, 61.82 % and 52.73 %, respectively. The expression of nuclear Survivin and Class III β-tubulin was consistent with that of Sox2 (p = 0.005 and 0.020, respectively). Positive expression of Class III β-tubulin, Sox2, and nuclear Survivin was significantly associated with chemoresistance to taxane-based chemotherapy (p = 0.006, 0.007, and 0.009, respectively), but not to non-taxane-based chemotherapy. Additionally, overexpression of Class III β-tubulin, Sox2, and nuclear Survivin predicted poor progression-free survival in patients receiving taxane-based chemotherapy (p = 0.032, 0.005, and 0.004, respectively).ConclusionsThese findings suggest that overexpression of Class III β-tubulin, Sox2, and nuclear Survivin might be predictive of taxane resistance and poor progression-free survival in patients with stage III ovarian epithelial cancer. Expression of these three factors may show positive correlations in these patients.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-015-1553-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
IntroductionClass III β-tubulin, Sox, and Survivin play important roles in tumor survival and proliferation
Class III β-tubulin, sex-determining region Y box2 (Sox2), and Survivin play important roles in tumor survival and proliferation
In the taxane-based group, positive expression of Class III βtubulin, Sox2, and only nuclear Survivin was significantly associated with disease progression (p = 0.006, 0.007, and 0.009, respectively)
Summary
Class III β-tubulin, Sox, and Survivin play important roles in tumor survival and proliferation. The association of these three factors with clinicopathological characteristics, chemoresistance, and survival in patients with ovarian cancer remains controversial. Patients treated with standard therapies such as cytoreductive surgery and chemotherapy often experience tumor progression and poor survival, which may be due to intrinsic or acquired chemoresistance. In 1997, Maria Kavallaris’s group first reported altered expression of specific β-tubulin genes in taxol resistant ovarian tumors and proposed that the class III and IVa isotypes of β-tubulin may play a role in clinical resistance to paclitaxel [2]. Several recent studies suggested that the overexpression of Class III β-tubulin was related to paclitaxel resistance in ovarian cancer cell lines [3, 4]
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