Investigation of the clinical significance of WDR12 expression in ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is a heterogeneous gynecological malignancy with different clinical pathological and unique genomic features. Although having different histopathological subtypes, ovarian cancer is treated as a single disease. Overall survival rates are low as most cases are diagnosed in the late stages (Stage III-IV). Traditionally, chemotherapy-based treatment is applied. In this context, it is emphasized that recognition of different molecular pathogenesis among subtypes and molecular targeted treatment strategies based on the genetic profile of ovarian cancer are necessary. The role of ribosome biogenesis in ovarian cancer has been defined and there are studies on treatment. WDR12, the last identified member of the PeBoW complex active in the process of ribosome biogenesis, is an oncogene that is shown to be overexpressed at the mRNA and protein levels in many human malignancies. Its irregular and high expression, is associated with poor prognosis. The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between WDR12 expression and clinical pathological features of cases diagnosed with ovarian cancer. 39 female cases diagnosed with ovarian cancer were included in our study. WDR12 expression in paraffin-embedded tissue blocks was examined by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) method. Relative expression levels and clinical pathological features of the cases were compared statistically. According to the data obtained, there was no statistically significant relationship between the median WDR12 expression levels and the histopathological subtypes of the cases (p=0,063). However, in mucinous cases, the number of cases with WDR12 expression below the median was determined to be higher than the number of cases above the median. A statistically significant relationship was detected between WDR12 expression and comorbidity status in ovarian cases (p=0,041). However, it was determined that there was no statistically significant relationship with other clinical features of the cases (p>0,05). Our results suggest that WDR12 expression levels are effective in various clinical features of ovarian cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the relationship between WDR12 expression and ovarian cancer clinical pathological features.