Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: The Role of Cell Cycle Genes in the Different Histotypes
Giuseppina D’Andrilli2, Antonio Giordano2, 3, Alessandro Bovicelli*, 1, 2
1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sant’Orsola Hospital, University of Bologna, 40138 Bologna, Italy
2 Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, Dept. of Biology, College of Science and Technology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
3 Department of Human Pathology and Oncology, University of Siena, Siena, Italy
Abstract
Cancer is frequently considered to be a disease of the cell cycle; alterations in different families of cell cycle regulators cooperate in tumor development. Molecular analysis of human tumors has shown that cell cycle regulators are frequently mutated in human neoplasms, which underscores how important the maintenance of cell cycle commitment is in the prevention of human cancer. The regulatory pathways controlling cell cycle phases include several oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes which display a range of abnormalities with potential usefulness as markers of evolution or treatment response in epithelial ovarian cancer. This review summarizes the current knowledge about these aberrations in malignant tumors of the ovary. We sought to focus our attention on the genes involved in the development of tumors arising from the ovarian epithelium, which are the most common types of ovarian malignancies.
Keywords: Cell cycle deregulation, ovarian malignancy, cancer therapy, ovarian carcinoma histotypes..
Article Information
Article History:
Received Date: 7/1/2008
Revision Received Date: 14/1/2008
Acceptance Date: 22/1/2008
Electronic publication date: 6/2/2008
Collection year: 2008
Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License(
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sant’Orsola Hospital, University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 13, 40138 Bologna, Italy; Tel: 051-399520; Fax: 051-304751;
E-mail:
alessandrobovicelli@yahoo.it
Open Peer Review Details |
Manuscript submitted on 7-1-2008 |
Original Manuscript |
Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: The Role of Cell Cycle Genes in the Different Histotypes |