title: The significance of Elf-1 expression in epithelial ovarian carcinoma.
abstract: Elf-1 is a member of the Ets transcription factor family that regulates the genes involved in cellular growth and differentiation. Enhanced expression of Elf-1 has been reported in prostate cancer, breast cancer, and osteosarcoma. The aim of this study was to elucidate the involvement of Elf-1 in ovarian carcinogenesis. We analyzed serial frozen tissue sections from 26 patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma and 10 patients with benign cystadenoma of ovary for Elf-1 protein expression, using fluorescent immunohistochemistry. We analyzed the relationship between the percentages of Elf-1-stained cells and patient characteristics, including histological classification, clinical stage, histological grade, clinical outcome, and survival rate. Elf-1 was weakly detected in some benign cystadenomas (0-5.5%). There was, however, abundant Elf-1 immunoreactivity in the nucleus of the ovarian carcinoma cells along with a little cytoplasmic staining. Scoring on the basis of the percentage of nuclear-positive cells indicated that nuclear Elf-1 expression was significantly associated with PCNA-labeling index (p=0.04), clinical stage (p<0.01), histological grade (p<0.01), and clinical outcome (p=0.02). However, there was no relationship between Elf-1 expression and histological classification. Survival data were available for all patients and demonstrated that Elf-1 expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis (p<0.01). Our results demonstrate that Elf-1 expression in ovarian carcinoma correlates with the malignant potential of this tumor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Oita Medical University, Oita 879-5593, Japan. takai@oita-med.ac.jp
authors.forename: Noriyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Takai
authors.forename: Tami
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
authors.forename: Masakazu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nishida
authors.forename: Kaei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nasu
authors.forename: Isao
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Miyakawa
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma / Q000378:metabolism*; D003537:Cystadenoma / Q000378:metabolism; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D004848:Epithelium / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors