title: Overexpression of centromere protein K (CENPK) in ovarian cancer is correlated with poor patient survival and associated with predictive and prognostic relevance.
abstract: Ovarian cancer has a poor prognosis. Most patients are diagnosed with ovarian cancer when the disease has reached an advanced stage and cure rates are generally under 30%. Hence, early diagnosis of ovarian cancer is the best means to control the disease in the long term and abate mortality. So far, cancer antigen 125 (CA125) and human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) are the gold-standard tumor markers for ovarian cancer; however, these two markers can be elevated in a number of conditions unrelated to ovarian cancer, resulting in decreased specifically and positive predictive value. Therefore, it is urgent to identify novel biomarkers with high reliability and sensitivity for ovarian cancer. In this study for the first time, we identified a member of the centromere protein (CENP) family, CENPK, which was specifically upregulated in ovarian cancer tissues and cell lines and the overexpression of which was associated with poor prognoses in patients with ovarian cancer. In addition, the presence of CENPK significantly improved the sensitivity of CA125 or HE4 for predicting clinical outcomes of ovarian cancer patients. In conclusion, we identified that CENPK was specifically upregulated in ovarian cancer cells and can be used as a novel tumor marker of ovarian cancer.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Neural Regenerative Medicine, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yi-Chao
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Neural Regenerative Medicine, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chi-Chen
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bioinformatics and Biosignal Transduction, College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.|Graduate Institute of Cancer Biology and Drug Discovery, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ding-Yen
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wen-Chang
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Cancer Biology and Drug Discovery, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Kuen-Haur
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Lee
keywords: CA125; CENPK; HE4; Ovarian cancer