Aberrant expression of the c-erbB-2/neu protooncogene in ovarian cancer

Overexpression of the c-erbB-2/neu protooncogene has recently been shown in ovarian tumors collected from the United States. It is known that environmental and cultural factors may contribute to certain types of cancer, therefore, we examined expression of c-erbB-2/neu in ovarian tumors collected from China by immunohistochemical staining. Out of 81 tumor specimens, 57 (70.4%) were found to be immunopositive, whereas only one out of 17 (5.9%) normal ovarian tissue samples was slightly positive. Our results indicate that overexpression of c-erbB-2/neu is a general phenomenon for ovarian cancer regardless of different population. To search for a c-erbB/neu overexpressing cell line for future study on molecular mechanism, we also analyzed 13 cancer cell lines from the female genital tract for expression of c-erbB-2/neu. The c-erbB-2/neu RNA was found to be overexpressed at least 100-fold in one of the four ovarian cancer cell lines examined. An aberrant c-erbB-2/neu RNA was also found to be overexpressed in this cell line. Southern blot analysis indicated that the c-erbB-2/neu was amplified 2-4-fold in this line, and some of these alleles have structural alteration which may account for expression of the aberrant c-erbB-2/neu RNA. Since the 2-4-fold gene amplification is not proportional to the > 100-fold overexpression in RNA, other mechanisms such as transcriptional or post-transcriptional control must be involved in overexpression of this gene in ovarian cancer.