Differential expression of vascular endothelial growth factor A in human epithelial ovarian cancer.
Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal gynecologic cancer (1). We performed discovery of genes associated with epithelial ovarian cancer and of the high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) subtype, using published microarray data (2, 3) to compare global gene expression profiles of normal ovary or fallopian tube with that of primary tumors from women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer or HGSC. We identified the gene encoding vascular endothelial growth factor A, VEGFA, as among the genes whose expression was most different in epithelial ovarian cancer as compared to the normal fallopian tube. VEGFA expression was significantly higher in high-grade serous ovarian tumors relative to normal fallopian tube. VEGFA expression correlated with overall survival in patients with ovarian cancer. These data indicate that expression of VEGFA is perturbed in epithelial ovarian cancers broadly and in ovarian cancers of the HGSC subtype. VEGFA may be relevant to pathways underlying ovarian cancer initiation (transformation) or progression.