Methylation levels of SEPT9 were stage-dependent and showed a stepwise increase in UICC stages (I-IV), primary tumor categories (T1-T4), regional node categories (N0-N2), and distant metastasis categories (M0-M1).
These findings suggest that a mechanism of Septin-9-induced aberrant cancer cell migration is through cytoskeletal regulation and FA modulation, and encourages the use of SEPT9 as novel therapeutic target in the prevention of tumor metastasis.
SEPT9 ccfDNA methylation further allowed for an accurate pre- and post-therapeutic detection of distant metastases (AUC<sub>pre-therapeutic</sub> = 0.79 (95%CI 0.69-0.89), AUC<sub>post-therapeutic</sub> = 0.93 (95% CI 0.79-1.0)).
The plasma levels of septin-9 and clusterin in ovarian cancer patients were abnormally elevated, which might be used as potential candidates of peripheral blood tumor biomarkers for early diagnosis of EOC and septin-9 might be related to distal metastases of EOC.