The specifical inhibition of the expression of integrin alpha5/beta1 probably enhances the treatment effects and improves the prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer

Due to subtle symptoms and the absence of effective early screening methods, most of epithelial ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed in the late stage, when current treatment strategies are not so satisfactory. To date, ovarian cancer is still the leading cause of gynecological malignancy deaths in women. The formation of massive ascites is one of the important characteristics of epithelial ovarian carcinoma in the late stage. Cancer cells, existing in ascites in the form of spheroids, play an important role in metastasis and recurrence of the malignancy. Alpha5/beta1 integrin has been found to participate in the formation of epithelial ovarian cancer multicellular spheroids in vitro. But if we want to choose alpha5- and beta1-integrin subunits as treatment targets, we must specifically block the two subunits in cancer cells, because these two subunits are very important for the physiological activities in normal cells. Based on the knowledge mentioned above, we present hypotheses that we can inhibit specifically the expression of alpha5/beta1 integrin in cancer cells with the help of complementary replication defective adenovirus. As a result, the formation of cancer cells spheroids in ascites might be interfered with and the treatment effects and prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer might be improved.