Associations of tumor suppressor SPARCL1 with cancer progression and prognosis.

SPARC-like protein 1 (SPARCL1), a member of the family of secreted proteins which is acidic and rich in cysteine, is a potential tumor suppressor gene in most types of tumor. A systemic review and bioinformatics analysis was carried out to determine the associations between SPARCL1 and tumor progression and clinical factors. Downregulation of SPARCL1, thought to be regulated by epigenetic modifications including DNA methylation, serves important functions in tumor progression and development, with its regulatory functions on cell viability, migration, invasion, cell adhesion and drug resistance.

Cross-validation of genes potentially associated with overall survival and drug resistance in ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death among malignancies of the female reproductive system. The 5-year survival rates of ovarian cancer (OC) patients are very poor as a result of recurrent disease and emergence of drug resistance; thus, studies to find predictive markers and factors for drug resistance are ongoing. In the present study, based on the microarrays from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) profiles covering 1648 OC patients, 11 out of 136 genes that were found to be significantly dysregulated in OC were associated with overall survival (OS) in 489 OC patients of the TCGA cohort.