Cancer Management and Research (Oct 2020)

Programmed Death-1 Receptor (PD-1) as a Potential Prognosis Biomarker for Ovarian Cancer Patients

  • Pawłowska A,
  • Suszczyk D,
  • Tarkowski R,
  • Paduch R,
  • Kotarski J,
  • Wertel I

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 12
pp. 9691 – 9709

Abstract

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Anna Pawłowska,1 Dorota Suszczyk,1 Rafał Tarkowski,2 Roman Paduch,3 Jan Kotarski,2 Iwona Wertel1 1Independent Laboratory of Cancer Diagnostics and Immunology, I Chair and Department of Oncological Gynaecology and Gynaecology, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-081, Poland; 2I Chair and Department of Oncological Gynaecology and Gynaecology, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin 20-081, Poland; 3Department of Virology and Immunology, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin 20-033, PolandCorrespondence: Anna PawłowskaIndependent Laboratory of Cancer Diagnostics and Immunology, I Chair and Department of Oncological Gynaecology and Gynaecology, Medical University of Lublin, Staszica 16, Lublin 20-081, PolandTel +48 81532 7847Fax +48 81532 0608Email [email protected]: Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the most lethal gynecological malignancies. Recent studies suggest a crucial role of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway in OC pathogenesis. Therefore, our study aimed at evaluation of the clinical importance of PD-1 expression in ovarian cancer patients.Patients and Methods: In this study, we investigated the role of PD-1 in OC patients (n=50) by analyzing its expression on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in three OC environments: peripheral blood (PB), peritoneal fluid (PF), and tumor (TT) as well as soluble PD-1 (sPD-1) in plasma and PF in terms of their clinical and prognostic significance. T cells with PD-1 expression were analyzed using flow cytometry. The concentration of sPD-1 was determined with the use of ELISA. Our research demonstrated differences in PD-1 expression on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the OC environments.Results: We found an elevated level of CD4+PD-1+ T cells in tumor and PF, compared to PB. Additionally, we found the highest percentage of CD8+ PD-1+ in tumor, compared to PB and PF. The levels of sPD-1 were higher (p< 0.0001) in plasma than in PF. For the first time, we discovered that the higher level of CD4+PD-1+ T cells in the circulation and the higher sPD-1 level in plasma predict poor survival of OC patients.Conclusion: We suggest that PD-1 could be a predictive biomarker for OC patients and successful immunotherapy.Keywords: ovarian cancer, programmed cell death receptor 1, PD-1/PD-L1, grading, survival, immunotherapy

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