TY - JOUR T1 - Prognostic Impact of the Cancer Stem Cell–Related Marker NANOG in Ovarian Serous Carcinoma JF - International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer JO - Int J Gynecol Cancer SP - 1489 LP - 1496 DO - 10.1097/IGJ.0b013e3182738307 VL - 22 IS - 9 AU - Maria Lee AU - Eun Ji Nam AU - Sang Wun Kim AU - Sunghoon Kim AU - Jae Hoon Kim AU - Young Tae Kim Y1 - 2012/11/01 UR - http://ijgc.bmj.com/content/22/9/1489.abstract N2 - Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of NANOG expression in ovarian serous carcinoma.Methods The expression of NANOG was evaluated in 6 ovarian carcinoma cell lines, paclitaxel-resistant SKOV3 cells, and SKOV3 spheroid cells with semiquantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting. NANOG expression was also measured immunohistochemically in a tissue microarray containing ovarian tissues from 74 patients with ovarian serous carcinoma and 24 with ovarian serous cystadenoma. Each sample was scored based on signal intensity and proportion, and a score greater than 4 was considered “positive.”Results NANOG mRNA expression was variable in different ovarian cancer cell lines. The mRNA level of NANOG was increased in the paclitaxel-resistant SKOV3 cells and SKOV3 spheroid cells compared with that in the SKOV3 cells. NANOG expression was positive in 21.6% of 74 ovarian serous carcinoma tissues, but none of the ovarian serous cystadenoma tissues were positive. Positive NANOG expression was associated with residual tumor size after surgery (P = 0.032). The overall survival of the patients with positive NANOG expression was poorer than that of the patients with negative NANOG expression (P = 0.020). In patients with stage I and II disease, positive NANOG expression was independently associated with shorter overall survival compared with negative NANOG expression (40 vs 120 months, respectively; P = 0.031).Conclusions Positive NANOG expression is associated with poor prognosis of ovarian serous carcinoma. NANOG has potential as a predictor of survival for patients with ovarian carcinomas and may be involved in the mechanism of chemoresistance. ER -