Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the key genetic changes and molecular mechanisms in the process of invasion and metastasis of human epithelial ovarian cancers. The in vitro invasion assay was used to further testify that the human epithelial ovarian cancer cell line SKOV3.ip1 is more invasive and metastatic compared with its parental line SKOV3. A total of 17,000 human genome complementary DNA microarrays were used to compare the gene expression patterns of the two cell lines. Reverse transcription–polymerase chain reactions and Western blotting were performed to validate the results of the microarray. Totally, 1557 twofold differentially expressed genes were screened out by 17,000 human genome complementary DNA microarrays between the two cell lines, including some important genes such as, nm23, c-erbB-2, and other unknown genes or expressed sequence tags with remarkable fold changes. The results of the microarray experiment were further confirmed by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reactions and Western blotting of the nm23-H2 gene. SKOV3.ip1 is more invasive and metastatic than its parental line. The invasion and metastasis mechanism of epithelial ovarian cancer is a very complex process in which many important genes like nm23, c-erbB-2, as well as other unknown genes or expressed sequence tags were involved.