Expression Of Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Axl And Its Ligand Gas6in Type â…  And â…¡ Epithelial Ovarian Carcinoma And Its Clinical Significance

Objective:Recent morphologic, immunohistochemical and molecular genetics studies suggest that there are two types of epithelial ovarian carcinoma(EOC),namely,EOC type I and EOC type II. Most molecularly targeted therapies inhibit cell growth and cell invasion by the inhibition of receptor tyrosine kinase(RTK) or their downstream signal transduction pathways.Studying RTK in human cancers is crucial for developing new systemic therapies for cancer patients.It was reported that Axl and Gas6have been overexpressed in many kinds of tumors and played important roles in tumorigenesis and development. We detected the expression of receptor tyrosine kinase Axl and its ligand Gas6protein in type â…  and â…¡ EOC,then we analyzed the relationship between their expression and clinicopathological parameters of EOC to deduce their clinical significance.Methods:86EOC specimens with complete clinical and pathological data were collected(48for type â…  and38for type â…¡).15borderline epithelial ovarian tumor(EOT) tissues and20benign EOT tissues were also collected as the control groups.Using immunohistochemical method to detect Axl and Gas6in121specimens.H-Score method was used to examine the staining results.The experimental results were analyzed by SPSS17.0.Results:Positive expression of Axl and Gas6protein in type â…¡ EOC was significantly higher than that in type I.Expression of Axl and Gas6in EOC was higher than control groups. The high expression of Axl and Gas6in EOC had significant difference in FIGO stage,lymph node metastasis and remote metastasis.The expression of Axl had not significant difference in age, histological types and tumor size and Gas6in age, histological types,tumor size and ascites.When Axl and Gas6were analyzed as one group,a significant difference was found between the group with both expression and that with the expression of only one or none.Furthermore,the Spearman correlation from rank analysis demonstrated that there was a positive correlation between Axl and Gas6expression in EOC.Conclusion:High expression of Axl and its ligand Gas6are both closely correlated with tumor malignancy degree and metastasis and they might be indicators to judge the biological behavior of EOC.Moreover,coexpression of the two plays more important role in driving ovarian cancer progression and metastasis.Combined detection of the two can help to improve the accuracy and sensitivity of type â…¡ EOC.Gas6/Axl signaling pathway is an important therapeutic target for ovarian cancer.Molecularly targeted therapies inhibiting this way can suppress ovarian cancer malignancy progression effectively and may be an effective adjuvant therapy for the treatment of EOC.