Abstract Ovarian cancer, the most deadly gynecological malignancy in U.S. women, metastasizes uniquely, spreading through the peritoneal cavity and often generating widespread metastatic sites before diagnosis. The vast majority of ovarian cancer cases occur in women over 40 and the median age at diagnosis is 63. Additionally, elderly women receive poorer prognoses when diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Despite age being a significant risk factor for the development of this cancer, there are little published data which address the impact of aging on ovarian cancer metastasis. Here we report that the aged host is more susceptible to metastatic success using two murine syngeneic allograft models of ovarian cancer metastasis. This age-related increase in metastatic tumor burden corresponds with an increase in tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in tumor-bearing mice and alteration of B cell-related pathways in gonadal adipose tissue. Based on this work, further studies elucidating the status of B cell TILs in mouse models of metastasis and human tumors in the context of aging are warranted.
#2Ryan C. Phan(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 1
Last. M. Sharon Stack(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 17
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Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in U.S. women and the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. This lethality is largely due to the fact that most cases are diagnosed at metastatic stages of the disease when the prognosis is poor. Epidemiologic studies consistently demonstrate that parous women have a reduced risk of developing ovarian cancer, with a greater number of births affording greater protection; however little is known about the impact of parity on ovarian cancer met...
Last. Xiaoxiang Chen(Nanjing Medical University)H-Index: 2
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The survival duration of elderly patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma is shorter than that of their younger counterparts. This variation in survival duration is likely attributed to differences in the distribution of histological type or grade, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) staging, and undertreatment, but this observation remains controversial. This study aimed to investigate the biological factors other than selection bias associated with the decreased surv...
Last. Frances R. Balkwill(QMUL: Queen Mary University of London)H-Index: 104
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Purpose: In high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC), higher densities of both B cells and the CD8+ T-cell infiltrate were associated with a better prognosis. However, the precise role of B cells in the antitumor response remains unknown. As peritoneal metastases are often responsible for relapse, our aim was to characterize the role of B cells in the antitumor immune response in HGSOC metastases. Experimental Design: Unmatched pre and post-chemotherapy HGSOC metastases were studied. B-cell loca...
Last. Iain A. McNeish(Glas.: University of Glasgow)H-Index: 56
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There is a need for transplantable murine models of ovarian high grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) with regard to mutations in the human disease, to assist investigations of the relationships between tumor genotype, chemotherapy response and immune microenvironment. In addressing this need, we performed whole exome sequencing of ID8, the most widely-used transplantable model of ovarian cancer, covering 194,000 exomes at a mean depth of 400x with 90% exons sequenced >50x. We found no functional mutat...
Emerging evidence suggest that many high-grade serous "ovarian" cancers (HGSOC) start in the fallopian tube. Cancer cells are then recruited to the ovary and then spread diffusely through the abdomen. The mechanism of ovarian cancer spread was thought to be largely due to direct shedding of tumor cells into the peritoneal cavity with vascular spread being of limited importance. Recent work challenges this dogma, suggesting hematogenous spread of ovarian cancer may play a larger role in ovarian c...
Last. M. Sharon Stack(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 17
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Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancy in the United States. Mortality is due to diagnosis of 75% of women with late stage disease, when metastasis is already present. EOC is characterized by diffuse and widely disseminated intra-peritoneal metastasis. Cells shed from the primary tumor anchor in the mesothelium that lines the peritoneal cavity as well as in the omentum, resulting in multi-focal metastasis, often in the presence of peritoneal asc...
Last. M. Sharon Stack(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 17
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Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancy, with high mortality attributable to widespread intraperitoneal metastases. Recent meta-analyses report an association between obesity, ovarian cancer incidence, and ovarian cancer survival, but the effect of obesity on metastasis has not been evaluated. The objective of this study was to use an integrative approach combining in vitro , ex vivo , and in vivo studies to test the hypothesis that obesity contr...
#2Daniel J. Powell(UPenn: University of Pennsylvania)H-Index: 53
The accumulation of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in ovarian cancer is prognostic for increased survival while increases in immunosuppressive regulatory T-cells (Tregs) are associated with poor outcomes. Approaches that bolster tumor-reactive TILs may limit tumor progression. However, identifying tumor-reactive TILs in ovarian cancer has been challenging, though adoptive TIL therapy in patients has been encouraging. Other forms of TIL immunomodulation remain under investigation including...
// Sharon L. Eddie 1 , Suzanne M. Quartuccio 1 , Eoghainin O hAinmhire 1 , Georgette Moyle-Heyrman 1 , Dan D. Lantvit 1 , Jian-Jun Wei 2 , Barbara C. Vanderhyden 3 and Joanna E. Burdette 1 1 Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 2 Department of Pathology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA 3 Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Corresponde...
Motivation: A large choice of tools exists for many standard tasks in the analysis of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data. However, once a project deviates from standard workflows, custom scripts are needed. Results: We present HTSeq, a Python library to facilitate the rapid development of such scripts. HTSeq offers parsers for many common data formats in HTS projects, as well as classes to represent data, such as genomic coordinates, sequences, sequencing reads, alignments, gene model informa...
Proteases play a crucial role in the progression and metastasis of ovarian cancer. Pericellular protein degradation and fragmentation along with remodeling of the extracellular matrix (ECM) is accomplished by numerous proteases that are present in the ovarian tumor microenvironment. Several proteolytic processes have been linked to cancer progression, particularly those facilitated by the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family. These proteases have been linked to enhanced migratory ability, extra...
PURPOSE The aim was to investigate the systemic levels of cytokines and the expression of the chemokine receptor CXCR2 in circulating neutrophils in patients with non-neoplastic ovarian lesions, benign neoplasia or malignant neoplasia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Controls and patients with ovarian tumors were pre-operatively compared for the production of cytokines (IL-2, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNF-α) by ELISA, and for the expression of the chemokine receptor, CXCR2, in neutrophils, by flow cytom...
ABSTRACTBackground: Ovarian cancer is one of the gynecological malignancies responsible for thousands of deaths in women worldwide. Malignant solid tumors are formed by malignant cells and stroma t...
#1Marwa Asem(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 5
#2Allison Young(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 2
Last. M. Sharon Stack(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 17
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The non-canonical Wnt ligand Wnt5a is found in high concentrations in ascites of women with ovarian cancer. In this study, we elucidated the role of Wnt5a in ovarian cancer metastasis. Wnt5a promoted ovarian tumor cell adhesion to peritoneal mesothelial cells as well as migration and invasion, leading to colonization of peritoneal explants. Host components of the ovarian tumor microenvironment, notably peritoneal mesothelial cells and visceral adipose, secreted Wnt5a. Conditional knockout of hos...
Purpose:The ovarian cancer risk factors of age and ovulation are curious since ovarian cancer incidence increases in postmenopausal women, long after ovulations have ceased. To determine how age and ovulation underlie ovarian cancer risk, we assessed the effects of these risk factors on the ovarian microenvironment. Experimental Design:Aged C57/lcrfa mice (0-33 months old) were generated to assess the aged ovarian microenvironment. To expand our findings into human aging we assembled a cohort of...
Metastasis is the most devastating stage of cancer progression and causes the majority of cancer-related deaths. Clinical observations suggest that most cancers metastasize to specific organs, a process known as “organotropism.” Elucidating the underlying mechanisms may help identify targets and treatment strategies to benefit patients. This review summarizes recent findings on tumor-intrinsic properties and their interaction with unique features of host organs, which together determine organ-sp...
: Epithelial ovarian carcinoma is the most predominant type of ovarian carcinoma, the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. It is typically diagnosed late when the cancer has already metastasized. Transcoelomic metastasis is the most predominant mechanism of dissemination from epithelial ovarian carcinoma, although both hematogenously and lymphogenously spread metastases also occur. In this review, we describe molecular mechanisms known to regulate organ-specific metastasis from epithelial ovarian c...
#2Emma Sheedy(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 2
Last. M. Stack(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 3
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: Age is one of the biggest risk factors for ovarian cancer. Older women have higher rates of diagnosis and death associated with the disease. In mouse models, it was shown that aged mice had greater tumor burden than their younger counterparts when intraperitoneally injected with ovarian tumor cells. While very few papers have been published looking at the direct link between ovarian cancer metastasis and age, there is a wealth of information on how age affects metastatic microenvironments. Mes...
#2Ryan C. Phan(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 1
Last. M. Sharon Stack(ND: University of Notre Dame)H-Index: 17
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Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in U.S. women and the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. This lethality is largely due to the fact that most cases are diagnosed at metastatic stages of the disease when the prognosis is poor. Epidemiologic studies consistently demonstrate that parous women have a reduced risk of developing ovarian cancer, with a greater number of births affording greater protection; however little is known about the impact of parity on ovarian cancer met...