NCKU, University of Ottawa collaboration leads to medical breakthrough in ovarian cancer
Tainan, Taiwan, October 20, 2014
Placing the 5th in women’s cancer prevalence, ovarian cancer is accompanied by high mortality rate and, unfortunately, the number of Taiwanese females afflicted with ovarian cancer are still steadily increasing annually.
In attempt to combat this trend, a joint collaboration research team between National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in southern Taiwan, and University of Ottawa in Canada was formed, to investigate the disease prognosis factors and effective treatment strategy of ovarian cancer, as well as its chemoresistance issues.
The team has identified gelsolin plays a critical role in the chemo-resistance.
Conducted by distinguished professor Dr. Dar-Bin Shieh, NCKUH OB/GYN physicians Dr. Cheng-Yang Chou and Dr. Yu-Fang Huang and postdoctoral fellow Pei-Wen Wang, together with Dr. Benjamin Tsang of the University of Ottawa, the research was published in the September issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
According to Dr. Dar-Bin Shieh, though gelsolin was often studied cellular motility and cytoskeleton re-arrangement in the past, none had thought to link it with cancer drug resistance.
They found that increased level of gelsolin is associated with aggressive forms of ovarian cancer and are more likely to resist chemotherapy and lead to death.
Dr. Shieh noted that treatments for ovarian cancer are mainly surgical removal and chemotherapy. However, as the cancer developed toward its terminal stages under chemotherapy, it is prone to develop chemo-resistance later with a high probability for recurrence and death.
Both ovarian cancer patients’ sample and culturing cell lines indicate that higher level of gelsolin expression predicts development of chemo-resistance and a higher chance of recurrence as well as mortality as compared to their counterparts exhibiting a lesser level.
The study concludes the level of gelsolin expression well predict chemo-resistance phenotype of ovarian cancer.
The critical unmet clinical needs in the failure of chemotherapy is derived from the conversion toward chemo-resistance, for which the team has now identified gelsolin to be responsible, Dr. Shieh said.
Such findings are important, says Dr. Shieh, in that they can now help clinicians to predict chmoresistance thus helping the development of most effective treatment plan based on gelsolin level thus reduce the chance for cancer recurrence.
The team also observed that modulation of gelsolin expression can abolish ovarian cancer cells drug resistance. By introducing gelsolin partial fragment to chemo-resistant cancer cells, the “apoptosis inhibition” effect of gelsolin was effectively supressed, making the cells sensitized again to chemotherapeutic agents.
The short-term goal for future development, Dr. Shieh adds, is to develop a detection method to accurately predict ovarian cancer drug resistance potential, whilst the long-term aim is to develop effective anti-resistance strategy in ovarian cancers.
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Placing the 5th in women’s cancer prevalence, ovarian cancer is accompanied by high mortality rate and, unfortunately, the number of Taiwanese females afflicted with ovarian cancer are still steadily increasing annually.
In attempt to combat this trend, a joint collaboration research team between National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in southern Taiwan, and University of Ottawa in Canada was formed, to investigate the disease prognosis factors and effective treatment strategy of ovarian cancer, as well as its chemoresistance issues.
The team has identified gelsolin plays a critical role in the chemo-resistance.
Conducted by distinguished professor Dr. Dar-Bin Shieh, NCKUH OB/GYN physicians Dr. Cheng-Yang Chou and Dr. Yu-Fang Huang and postdoctoral fellow Pei-Wen Wang, together with Dr. Benjamin Tsang of the University of Ottawa, the research was published in the September issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
According to Dr. Dar-Bin Shieh, though gelsolin was often studied cellular motility and cytoskeleton re-arrangement in the past, none had thought to link it with cancer drug resistance.
They found that increased level of gelsolin is associated with aggressive forms of ovarian cancer and are more likely to resist chemotherapy and lead to death.
Dr. Shieh noted that treatments for ovarian cancer are mainly surgical removal and chemotherapy. However, as the cancer developed toward its terminal stages under chemotherapy, it is prone to develop chemo-resistance later with a high probability for recurrence and death.
Both ovarian cancer patients’ sample and culturing cell lines indicate that higher level of gelsolin expression predicts development of chemo-resistance and a higher chance of recurrence as well as mortality as compared to their counterparts exhibiting a lesser level.
The study concludes the level of gelsolin expression well predict chemo-resistance phenotype of ovarian cancer.
The critical unmet clinical needs in the failure of chemotherapy is derived from the conversion toward chemo-resistance, for which the team has now identified gelsolin to be responsible, Dr. Shieh said.
Such findings are important, says Dr. Shieh, in that they can now help clinicians to predict chmoresistance thus helping the development of most effective treatment plan based on gelsolin level thus reduce the chance for cancer recurrence.
The team also observed that modulation of gelsolin expression can abolish ovarian cancer cells drug resistance. By introducing gelsolin partial fragment to chemo-resistant cancer cells, the “apoptosis inhibition” effect of gelsolin was effectively supressed, making the cells sensitized again to chemotherapeutic agents.
The short-term goal for future development, Dr. Shieh adds, is to develop a detection method to accurately predict ovarian cancer drug resistance potential, whilst the long-term aim is to develop effective anti-resistance strategy in ovarian cancers.
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