Analysis of UHRF1 expression in human ovarian cancer tissues and its regulation in cancer cell growth

Ubiquitin-like with PHD and ring finger domains 1 (UHRF1), known as ICB90 or Np95, has been found to be overexpressed in numerous cancers. In this study, we evaluated the expression level of UHRF1 in ovarian cancer. UHRF1 levels in paired ovarian cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues from 80 ovarian cancer patients were detected using relative quantitatively PCR and Western blot. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) was introduced in two human ovarian cancer cell lines (SKOV-3 and OVCAR-3) to downregulate the expression of UHRF1. The proliferation of siRNA-treated cells was examined using cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. The growth of these cells showed a remarkable decrease. Moreover, flow cytometric and Hoechst 33342 assays were used to detect the apoptosis. The diagnostic value of UHRF1 messenger RNA (mRNA) expression in ovarian cancer was estimated by receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve. The correlation between UHRF1 mRNA expression and clinicopathologic features of ovarian cancer patients was evaluated by χ 2 test. Our results demonstrated that both UHRF1 mRNA and protein were highly expressed in ovarian cancer tissues and significantly higher than that in adjacent normal tissues. Moreover, the inhibition of UHRF1 may lead to cells to undergo apoptosis. Thus, UHRF1 could act as a new oncogenic factor in ovarian cancer and be a potential molecular target for ovarian cancer gene therapy.