title: Effects of HCG on human epithelial ovarian cancer vasculogenic mimicry formationin vivo.
abstract: Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of mortality due to gynecological malignancy, and vasculogenic mimicry (VM) formation is correlated with poor prognosis. In a previous study, the present authors observed that human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) could promote VM formation in three-dimensional OVCAR-3 cell cultures. In order to investigate whether HCG could promote VM formation in ovarian cancerin vivo, the role of OVCAR-3 cells overexpressing or depleted of chorionic gonadotropin, beta polypeptide 5 (CGB5, which is the fifth subunit of β-HCG and was identified as the key part of HCG) were injected into nude mice in the present study, while BeWo cells were used as a positive control. The results demonstrated that overexpressed CGB5 promoted xenografts tumor formation in nude mice, and the results of hematoxylin and eosin and cluster of differentiation (CD)34-periodic acid-Schiff dual staining revealed that CGB5 promoted VM formation. Furthermore, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and immunochemistry staining demonstrated that the expression of the vascular markers CD31, vascular endothelial growth factor and factor VIII was also upregulated in the CGB5-overexpressing xenografts tumors. In addition, the expression of luteinizing hormone receptor (LHR), the receptor of CGB5, was increased in CGB5-overexpressing cells. In conclusion, CGB5 may promote tumor growth and VM formation via activation of the LHR signal transduction pathway, which may support a novel strategy for ovarian cancer therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Sainan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electron Microscopy, Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Changlai
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yuquan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: beta polypeptide 5; chorionic gonadotropin; human chorionic gonadotropin; in vivo; ovarian cancer; vasculogenic mimicry