Page 98 - D. Cancer biology

[D. Cancer biology-64]

CD109 is a novel surface marker for ovarian cancer stem cell

Dae Kyoung Kim¹, Ye Eun Kim¹, Seoyul Lee¹, Min Joo Shin¹, Jae Ho Kim¹

¹Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Pusan National University, Yangsan-si 50612, South of Korea

Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest gynecologic malignancy with the late detection of cancer development. In
this study, we isolated CSCs through sphere culture of A2780 epithelial ovarian cancer cells and primary ovarian
cancer cells from patients. We identified the expression of CD109 in A2780 ovarian cancer cells and observed that

the intensity and the frequency CD109 expression significantly increased in the sphere culture of A2780 ovarian

cancer cells (A2780-SP). CD109 knockdown in spheroid cells reduced the cell migration and spheroid-forming
efficiency and ALDH activity. CD109 overexpression in adherent A2780 cells increased cancer stem cell properties,
including cell migration, spheroid-forming efficiency and the ALDH activity. Furthermore, the analysis of ovarian

cancer patient sample shows the more malignant the cancer correlation with CD109 expression and patient survival.
Together, our results provide novel insights regarding the critical role of CD109 in the regulation of the cancer stem

cell characteristics of ovarian cancer cells, thus suggesting that CD109 may be an important target in the
development of therapeutics for ovarian cancer patients.