Detection of serum anti-p53 antibodies from patients with ovarian cancer in China: correlation to clinical parameters.

Background: Ovarian cancer has been one of the most common malignant tumor among women in China. The aims of this research were to increase the detection efficiency of anti-p53 antibodies in the sera from patients with ovarian cancer and to assist the diagnosis for patients with ovarian cancer.

Methods: The hybrid phage displaying the immunodominant epitope SQAMDDLMLS in p53 N-terminal region was constructed and the fusion protein was prepared and purified. Ninety-two nonselected Chinese women with ovarian cancer were involved in this study. Tumor p53 overexpression was assessed by immunohistochemical analysis of tissue sections. Serum antibodies to p53 were also detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using recombinant human wild-type p53 protein and the hybrid phage as the coating antigen respectively. Furthermore, the correlations between the anti-p53 antibodies and clinicopathological parameters were analyzed.

Results: The positive rate of anti-p53 antibodies in the patients with ovarian cancer was increased (39.1%, 36/92) through the combination of the two ELISA methods compared with each method. The anti-p53 antibodies were not associated with the clinicopathologic parameters, while there was a significant correlation between the presence of p53 Abs and tissue overexpression of p53 in ovarian cancer.

Conclusion: These preliminary results demonstrate that the combination of the two ELISA methods increased the positive rate of anti-p53 antibodies in patients with ovarian cancer and provided a useful marker to complement routine clinical diagnosis for patients with ovarian cancer.