A recent report describing the presence of beta-catenin mutations in endometrioid ovarian cancer suggested that the TCF/beta-catenin pathway may be generally activated in ovarian cancer.
Further, the expression of SOX9, β-catenin, and c-Myc in OC tissues was upregulated and inversely correlated with miR-34c expression, indicating that rescuing miR-34c expression, thus to inhibit SOX9, β-catenin, and c-Myc expression presents a promising strategy of reducing the chemoresistance of the OC cell to DDP.
Glutamine-fructose-6-phosphate transaminase 2 (GFPT2) promotes the EMT of serous ovarian cancer by activating the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway to increase the nuclear location of β-catenin.
In addition, we have determined that the cadherin-associated protein, known as beta-catenin, is expressed in normal peritoneum, ovarian tumors and malignant cell effusions obtained from women with Stage I or Stage II cancer.
In search of this transformation mechanism in human cancer cells, we identified breast and ovarian tumor lines with upregulation of the uncomplexed transcriptionally active form of beta-catenin without mutations afflicting downstream components.
Nuclear immunoreactivities for beta -catenin and CTNNB1 mutations were restricted to independent uterine and ovarian tumors and were absent in all of the metastatic tumors, providing direct evidence for a divergence of molecular oncogenetic mechanisms in the subset of synchronous endometrioid carcinomas.
Nucleus and/or cytoplasma of β-catenin expression might be associated with tumor progression and could be a possible potential predictive factor of poor prognosis in OC patients.
Our study identifies activated Wnt signalling to be a marker for precursor lesions of OC and successfully develops a mouse model that mimics the earliest events in pathogenesis of OC by constitutively activating βcatenin.
Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type R (PTPRR) antagonizes the Wnt signaling pathway in ovarian cancer by dephosphorylating and inactivating β-catenin.
Taken together, this study showed that Annexin A2 inhibition suppresses proliferation and invasion in ovarian cancer via β-catenin/EMT, proposing the potential role of Annexin A2 in the prevention and treatment of ovarian cancer.