Ovarian Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Ovarian Cancer, including details on symptoms, causes, treatment, information.

Genetic and epigenetic analysis of the TIMP-3 gene in ovarian cancer.

Liu MC, Choong DY, Hooi CS, Williams LH, Campbell IG

Cancer Genetics Laboratory, Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, St Andrews Place, East Melbourne, Vic, Australia.

Chromosome 22q shows a high frequency of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in ovarian cancers suggesting the existence of one or more important tumor suppressor genes (TSGs). The tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 (TIMP-3) is a plausible TSG candidate since it is often encompassed within these regions of LOH. TIMP-3 has not previously been investigated for somatic mutations or promoter hypermethylation in ovarian cancer. We analyzed 65 ovarian cancers for both somatic genetic mutations and TIMP-3 promoter hypermethylation. Screening of all coding exons of TIMP-3 did not reveal any somatic genetic mutations and only 1/65 showed TIMP-3 methylation. Our data indicate that inactivation of TIMP-3 by somatic mutation or promoter hypermethylation is rare in ovarian cancer.

Published 25 December 2006 in Cancer Lett, 247(1): 91-7.
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