The expression of CEBPG in ovarian cancer and its clinical significance

Abstract

Objective To explore the expression of CCAAT enhancer binding protein gamma (CEBPG) in ovarian cancer and its clinical significance. Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of CEBPG protein in 92 cases of ovarian cancer and 10 cases of non-tumor tissue in ovarian cancer tissue chip. The correlation between the expression of CEBPG protein and clinical data was analyzed. The Oncomine database was used to analyze CEBPG mRNA expression and DNA amplification levels in ovarian cancer. The TCGA database was used to analyze the correlation between CEBPG expression and clinicopathological parameters and survival time of patients in 565 ovarian serous adenocarcinoma tissues. CEBPG gene alteration and co-expression gene were analyzed by cBioPortal database. An enrichment analysis of CEBPG co-expression genes (Pearson correlation coefficient>0.2) based on cBioPortal database was performed using DAVID to investigate the signaling pathways. Results The expression of CEBPG protein in ovarian cancer tissues was higher than that in non-tumor tissues (P=0.004), and the expression of CEBPG in ovarian serous adenocarcinoma was higher than that in other types (P=0.049). The results from Oncomine and cBioPortal database showed that CEBPG mRNA expression and DNA amplification levels of CEBPG were high in ovarian serous adenocarcinoma; the expression of CEBPG was negatively correlated with stages (Stage2 vs Stage3, P=0.048; Stage2 vs Stage4, P=0.009; Stage3 vs Stage4, P=0.018) of ovarian serous adenocarcinoma patients in TCGA database; the overall survival time in patients with high CEBPG expression was shorter (P=0.032). In addition, CEBPG may be involved in cell cycle progression revealed by DAVID database. Conclusion CEBPG is overexpressed in ovarian cancer, especially in ovarian serous adenocarcinoma, and may involve the occurrence and development of ovarian serous adenocarcinoma and thus could be a biomarker of ovarian serous adenocarcinoma for the diagnosis and prognosis. Key words: Ovarian cancer; CEBPG; Diagnosis; Biomarker