Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological malignancy and molecular mechanisms of its progression and metastasis are not completely understood. Some members of GAB (GRB2-associated binding) protein family have been reported to be involved in tumor cell proliferation and metastasis in various cancer types. In the present study, we analyzed the expression of GAB proteins (GAB1, GAB2 and GAB3) in ovarian cancer compared to normal ovarian tissue, in terms of tumor stage, tumor grade and histological type. Differential expression analyses performed in R programming environment using multiple transcriptome datasets (n = 1449) showed that GAB1 expression is decreased in ovarian cancer independently of tumor stage, grade and histotype. Unlike GAB1, expression of GAB2 and GAB3 are increased from early stage to late stage and from low grade to high grade in epithelial ovarian cancer. GAB2 and GAB3 also showed histotype-dependent expression. GAB3 was computed as a top gene whose expression most significantly changed between tumor cells from primary tumor, metastases and ascites. High expression of GAB2 and GAB3 was shown to be associated with shorter progression-free survival in ovarian cancer. This study shows that GAB2 and GAB3 can be important regulators of tumor progression and metastasis in ovarian cancer.

卵巢癌是最致命的妇科恶性肿瘤，其进展和转移的分子机制尚不完全清楚。据报道，GAB（与GRB2相关的结合）蛋白家族的某些成员参与了各种癌症类型的肿瘤细胞增殖和转移。在本研究中，我们分析了与正常卵巢组织相比卵巢癌中GAB蛋白（GAB1，GAB2和GAB3）的表达，包括肿瘤分期，肿瘤分级和组织学类型。在R编程环境中使用多个转录组数据集进行的差异表达分析（n = 1449）表明，GAB1表达在卵巢癌中降低，与肿瘤的分期，等级和组织类型无关。与GAB1不同，在上皮性卵巢癌中，GAB2和GAB3的表达从早期到晚期以及从低等级到高等级都增加。GAB2和GAB3还显示了组织型依赖性表达。GAB3被计算为最重要的基因，其表达在原发肿瘤，转移瘤和腹水的肿瘤细胞之间变化最明显。GAB2和GAB3的高表达与卵巢癌的无进展生存期较短有关。这项研究表明，GAB2和GAB3可能是卵巢癌肿瘤进展和转移的重要调节剂。