Introduction/Background Ovarian cancer is a one of the primary cause of cancer-related death in women. The majority of ovarian cancer had metastasized at the time of diagnosis, since its signs and symptoms are generally silent. Cancer stem cells and immune evasion are thought to play a significant role in metastatic process. CD133, CD47, and PD-L1 proteins are important in cancer cells proliferation and evasion in metastasis process, which involve immune system activation. The purpose of this study was to characterize CD133, CD47, PD-L1 protein expression profiles in High-Grade Serous Carcinoma (HGSC) ovary. Understanding their roles in metastasis could gain the possibility of these markers to be a target therapy for ovarian cancer treatment and prevention.

Methodology A total of 51 tissue samples of HGSC were stained with anti-CD133, anti-CD4, and anti PD-L1 antiboies using an immunohistochemical protocol. Samples included 31 metastatic-HGSC and 20 non-metastatif-HGSC. CD133, CD47, and PD-L1 expression were statistically comapred among groups.

Results CD133 and CD47 were strongly expressed in 52% and 66.7% respectively in tissue samples. 65% of samples with metastases had a high level of CD133 expression with a p-value of 0.039. CD47 expression was observed to be elevated in 83% of metastatic samples. 66.7% of samples had negatif PD-L1 expression, which had a significant inverse association with HGSC metastatic disease (p=0.023).

Conclusion Our results demonstrated that CD133, CD47, and PD-L1 expression increased in a dynamic fashion as the primary lesion progressed to metastatic lesion, implying that these proteins may be involved in the progression of ovarian HGSC from primary to metastatic lesion. These markers could be explored as potential targets for HGSC-specific treatment