Lastly, KLK6 and KLK7 protein levels were significantly elevated in serum samples from serous and papillary serous subtypes in the early stages of ovarian cancer, and therefore could potentially decrease the high "false negative" rates found in the same patients with the common ovarian cancer biomarkers human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) and cancer antigen 125 (CA-125).
High tumor hk7 protein expression is associated with inferior patient outcome in ovarian cancer. hk7 may represent a promising prognostic factor in ovarian cancer.
We also found that one novel KLK5 transcript with a short 5'-untranslated region and a novel KLK7 transcript with a long 3'-untranslated region were highly expressed in the ovarian cancer cell lines OVCAR-3 and PEO1, respectively, but were expressed at very low levels in normal ovarian epithelial cells.