Estrogen induction and overexpression of fibulin-1C mRNA in ovarian cancer cells.

Fibulin-1 is an extracellular matrix protein induced by estradiol in estrogen receptor (ER) positive ovarian cancer cell lines. Alternative splicing of fibulin-1 mRNA results in four different variants named A, B, C and D that may have distinct biological functions. We studied the relative expression of fibulin-1 mRNA variants and their estrogen regulation in human ovarian cancer cells.