Biological role and prognostic significance of NAC1 in ovarian cancer.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the biological and clinical significance of NAC1 expression in ovarian cancer and assessed whether NAC1 has the potential to be a therapeutic target.

METHODS: NAC1 expression and gene amplification were assessed in ovarian cancers by immunohistochemistry, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and clinical data collected by a retrospective chart review. NAC1 gene knockdown using silencing RNA and a NAC1 gene transfection system were used to assess NAC1 function in ovarian cancer tissue samples.

RESULTS: The frequency of positive NAC1 expression in serous adenocarcinomas (50.0%:22/44) was significantly higher than that in the other histological subtypes (33.3%: 10/30). NAC1 gene amplification was identified in seven (9.5%) of 74 ovarian carcinomas. Positive NAC1 expression significantly correlated with shorter disease-free and overall survival (P = 0.002, P = 0.0048). A multivariate analysis showed that positive NAC1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free and overall survival after standard platinum-taxane chemotherapy (P = 0.0027, P = 0.0302). Profound growth inhibition, increased apoptosis, decreased cell proliferation, and decreased cell migration and invasion were observed in silencing RNA-treated cancer cells with NAC1 overexpression compared with cancer cells without NAC1 expression. NAC1 overexpression stimulated proliferation, migration, and invasion in ovarian cancer cell lines KF28 and TOV-21G, which normally lacked NAC1 expression.

CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that NAC1 over-expression is critical to the growth and survival of ovarian cancers. Furthermore, they suggest that NAC1 silencing RNA-induced phenotypes depend on the expression status of the targeted cell line. Therefore, NAC1-targeted therapy may benefit ovarian cancer patients with NAC1 expression.