Molecular analysis of normal oviduct, STIC and invasive serous cancer

High-grade serous cancer (HGSC) progresses to advanced stages without symptoms and the 5-year survival rate is a dismal 30%. Recent studies of ovaries and fallopian tubes in patients with BRCA mutations revealed that pre-metastatic HGSC is found almost exclusively in the fallopian tube in a lesion termed “serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma” or STIC. We have performed laser captured microdissection (LCM) of normal oviduct, STIC and invasive serous cancer from each patient. A whole-genome transcriptome analysis comparing between normal oviduct, STIC and invasive serous cancer were performed. We demonstrated a clear molecular progression from normal to STIC, which shared the gene expression patterns with invasive serous cancer, suggesting a new set of genes as basis of novel detection and therapeutic approaches to HGSC at its earliest stage. Uisng frozen sections, LCM was performed to collect normal oviduct, STIC and invasive serous cancer regions from one patient. Samples were collected from 6 independent patiens. Total RNA was isolated with Picopure RNA isolation kit. We used affymetrix HuEx-1_0-st-v2 array to hybridize samples from 6 patients.