Introduction/Background Asymptomatic nature of ovarian cancer makes 5th most common cancer worldwide and often called ‘Silent Killer’. Late diagnosis makes it highly dreadful malignancy among women. A non-invasive early screening method will help to reduce its high mortality rate. Multimerin 1 is EMLIN family protein which massive, soluble, disulfide-linked homo-polymeric ECM protein that is expressed in megakaryocytes, platelets and endothelial cells and found associated with different types of cancers including ovarian cancer with undefined role.

Methodology In this context, we performed validation of differential expression patterns for Multimerin1 via; western blotting, ELISA, Immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR in an independent cohort of ovarian cancer saliva and tumor tissues. Cell properties like viability, apoptosis, wound healing, adhesion; migration and invasion were studies by siRNA mediated knockdown of MMRN1 in in-vitro experiments in SKOV3 cell line.

Results Significant over expression of MMRN1 was observed by western blot and ELISA in saliva samples of ovarian cancer patients. Average concentration of MMRN1 in saliva of healthy control was 28.7 pg/ml, whereas 42.53 pg/ml in low grade and 52.91 pg/ml in high grade ovarian cancer. Its overexpression at mRNA level indicates its progression with tumors and found to be 7.4 in low grade and 12.36 in high grade ovarian cancer. Immunohistochemistry also confirms upregulated cytoplasmic expression of MMRN1 in ovarian cancer tissue. siRNA mediated knockdown of MMRN1 in SKOV-3 cell line showed reduced cell viability by 55%. Cell adhesion, migration and invasion by were also reduced by 46.5, 43, and 55.1 percent respectively. Cell scratch assay showed reduced wound healing capability of SKOV3 cells. Based on our findings, we believe that MMRN1 protein has potential to be explored further to established its plausible role in ovarian cancer.

Conclusion Perceived results indicated that MMRN1 expression increases with disease progression and induce cell proliferation thereby helping in metastasis.