High serum LDL promotes ovarian cancer cells metastasis by upregulating FOXQ1

Ovarian cancer has increasingly been linked with lipid metabolism disturbances, while the association between circulating low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and ovarian cancer remains controversial. our study found that high serum LDL promoted migration, invasion, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and stemness of ovarian cancer cells. Through high throughput sequencing, we found LDL enhanced the expression of genes related to EMT and stemness pathways in ovarian cancer cells. Besides, the effect might be facilitated by upregulating the critical transcription factor FOXQ1. Overall, our study uncovers a mechanism underlying metastasis in ovarian cancer cells, and suggests potential clinical strategies controlling serum LDL levels or targeting FOXQ1 to prevent ovarian cancer progression. Overall design: This experiment was conducted using SKOV3 cells, which were divided into control group (4 samples: C1-4) and treatment group (4 samples: T1-4). Both the control group and the treatment group were cultured in the same cell incubator and the same culture medium. In the treatment group, each sample was treated with LDL at a concentration of 50 µg/mL for 48 hours, and then all the samples were collected together for testing.