Background & objective: There was overexpression of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) in many kinds of malignant tumors. Overexpression of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) has been found in ovary cancer and there is no report about acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF) in ovary cancer up to now. The aim of this study was to explore the expression of aFGF and bFGF in ovarian cancer, and the effects of exogenous aFGF and bFGF on the proliferation of ovarian cancer OVCA3 cells, to discuss the relationship between FGF and ovary cancer.
Methods: The expression levels of aFGF and bFGF were determined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in 40 cases of ovarian epithelial cancer. MTT assay was used to determine the influence of aFGF and bFGF on the proliferation of ovarian cancer cell.
Results: The expression levels of aFGF mRNA and bFGF mRNA in the ovarian epithelial cancer were 0.981+/-0.130 and 1.023+/-0.131, respectively. Compared with normal ovary, ovarian tumor like lesion and benign ovary tumors, the difference was significant (P< 0.05). The expression levels in stage III-IV were significantly higher than those in stageI-II. Addition of exogenous aFGF and bFGF to OVCA3 cell line resulted in significant and reproducible increases in cell number in a dose-dependent manner. When the concentration of aFGF was at 1.2 microg/ml, the proliferative ratio of OVCA3 cell line was 1.51 times of the control group. When the concentration of bFGF was at 100 ng/ml, the proliferative ratio of OVCA3 cell line was 1.85 times of the control group.
Conclusion: aFGF and bFGF may play important roles in carcinogenesis, development, and invasion of ovarian epithelial cancer, and they can be used as the important indices for biologic behavior of ovarian cancer.