Proteomic identification of overexpressed PRDX 1 and its clinical implications in ovarian carcinoma

Ovarian carcinoma is the most lethal gynecological malignancy in worldwide. The discovery of reliable marker for early detection of ovarian carcinoma is critical for increasing patient's survival because high mortality rate is associated with late diagnosis of this tumor. In the present study, we performed comparative analysis of whole proteomes between serous borderline tumor and serous carcinoma to identify a useful biomarker for the early diagnosis and progression of ovarian carcinoma. Nine proteins were significantly overexpressed in ovarian serous carcinomas compared to borderline tumors. After validation with Western blotting and immunohistochemical analysis, prdx 1 was found to be the strongest overexpressed protein in malignant ovarian tumors among the selected proteins. In addition, the high level of prdx 1 expression (>50% positive cancer cells) was significantly correlated with poor overall survival in ovarian serous carcinomas. On a multivariate cox analysis, the relative risk of death was 8.74 in patients with serous carcinomas showing >50% of prdx 1-positive cancer cells. Our results suggest that prdx 1 may be a useful diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in ovarian carcinoma, especially serous carcinoma.