Relation ship between EGF receptor status and the prognosis of ovarian cancer patients

转化生长因子（transforming growth factors，TGF）、胰岛素样生长因子（insulin like growth factor，IGF）等自分泌机制在多种肿瘤和癌细胞系中均有表达。本文研究了35例卵巢癌组织中表皮生长因子（EGF）受体的表达，其中20例表达EGF受体，探讨了TGF α/EGFR自分泌生长机制在卵巢癌原代细胞、vSSL细胞和卵巢癌细胞系中的生物学意义。通过北方印迹分析、免疫细胞化学、结合实验等方法检测细胞生长因子及其受体的表达。我们还证实，这种自分泌机制在浆液性囊腺癌中比在粘液性癌中更常见。众所周知，浆液性卵巢癌的进展比粘液性囊腺癌更具侵袭性。我们可能提出一种可能性，即浆液性囊腺癌的侵袭性生长至少部分是由于TGFA/EGF自分泌生长机制，并且可能存在通过阻断自分泌机制进行治疗的可能性。

Autocrine mechanisms by transforming growth factors (TGF), insulin like growth factor are reported to be expressed in many kinds of cancers and cancer cell-lines. We studied the expression of epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor in 35 cases of ovarian cancers and 20 of them expressed EGF receptor and found the biological significance of TGFalpha/EGFR autocrine growth mechanism in primary o, vSSL, ria c cer cells and in an ovarian cancer cell-line, in vitro and in vivo. We-examined the expression of the growth factor and its receptor by Northern blot analysis, immunocytochemistry, binding studies. We also observed-that this autocrine mechanism was more commonly expressed in serous cystadenocarcinomas than in mucinous cancers. It is known that serous type ovarian cancers are more aggressive in their progression than mucinous cystadenocarcinomas. We might propose a possibility that the aggressive growth of serous cystadenocarinomas are, at least in part, due to TGFA/EGF autocrine growth mechanism, and that there might be a possibility of treatments by blocking the autocrine mechanism.