Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Insights From Hur Biology Point To Potential Improvement For Second-Line Ovarian Cancer Therapy., Yu-Hung Huang, Weidan Peng, Narumi Furuuchi, James B Duhadaway, Masaya Jimbo, Andrea Pirritano, Charles J Dunton, Gary S Daum, Benjamin E Leiby, Jonathan Brody, Md, Janet A Sawicki

Kimmel Cancer Center Faculty Papers

This retrospective study aimed to investigate the role that an RNA-binding protein, HuR, plays in the response of high-grade serous ovarian tumors to chemotherapeutics. We immunohistochemically stained sections of 31 surgically-debulked chemo-naïve ovarian tumors for HuR and scored the degree of HuR cytoplasmic staining. We found no correlation between HuR intracellular localization in tumor sections and progression free survival (PFS) of these patients, 29 of whom underwent second-line gemcitabine/platin combination therapy for recurrent disease. Ribonucleoprotein immunoprecipitation (RNP-IP) analysis of ovarian cancer cells in culture showed that cytoplasmic HuR increases deoxycytidine kinase (dCK), a metabolic enzyme that activates gemcitabine. The effects …