Abstract B27: Investigation of small GTPase genes in epithelial ovarian cancer

Background: Epithelial Ovarian Cancer (EOC) is a lethal gynecologic malignancy and the fifth cause of cancer mortality in women in the US. Normal ovarian physiology is intricately connected to tightly regulated small GTP binding proteins of the Ras superfamily (Ras, Rac, Rho, Rab, Arf, and Ran) which regulate key cellular processes such as signal transduction, cell proliferation, cell motility, and vesicle transport. These proteins function in a highly coordinated manner through signaling cascades and feedback loops within and among the small GTPase subfamilies. We hypothesized that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in small GTPase genes are associated with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk and aberrant expression of these genes correlates with tumor characteristics including overall survival (OS). Methods: In a discovery set of 7931 EOC cases and 9206 controls we investigated 9,356 SNPs from 112 genes, 657 of which showed associations up to the significance level of p