Ovarian cancer has globally the highest mortality rate among all gynecologic cancers world and is the eighth most common cancer type in Slovenia. Its major problem is discovering cancer in the early stages because symptoms typically show up only when it is already late for treatment. The most used drugs are chemotherapeutics based on platinum, with carboplatin being the most important. Nuclear DNA is the main target, which breaks and bends so that replication and transcription are not possible. Carboplatin has a relatively low toxicity, which is the reason why it replaced other platinum-based drugs. The key problem of ovarian cancer chemotherapy is resistance to platinum-based drugs, which occurs in 80 % of the patients.
ATP7A is a P-type protease and is a member of Cu-transporters (exporters) that are important for exporting copper from cells through the cell membrane. They utilize energy from ATP hydrolysis. In addition to copper, they can also bind platinum. That is why ATP7A is an important potential biomarker for predicting resistance to platinum-based medicine, but it still needs to be verified. Previous research shows that cells resistant to platinum-based treatment have a higher expression rate of ATP7A. Because of the molecular heterogeneity of the disease, research is mostly made on non-serous cell lines and that is the reason why determining the presence of ATP7A in serous cell lines remains the first next important step.
In this work, we wanted to prove the presence or absence of ATP7A in commercially available cell lines PEO14, OAW28 and OAW42. We cultivated cells in optimal growth conditions and with immunostaining, we established the presence of ATP7A using flow cytometry. Because all three cell lines are prone to cell aggregation, which could interrupt our analysis, we also wanted to overcome this problem by using EDTA, DPBS, and an injection syringe. In this work, we were the first to prove the intracellular localization of ATP7A in almost 90 % of the OAW28 cells. On top of that, we were the first to prove the extracellular absence of ATP7A in OAW42. The best approach for solving the problem of cells aggregation was the usage of an injection syringe, but that resulted in lower viability of the cells. During cell activation, we encountered some problems, such as infection, poor adhesion, and low cell density. This is the reason why not all parameters are shown in this work. The most problematic cell line was PEO14. We followed all the instructions provided by the supplier of the cell line, but inability of these cells to stick to flask plastics was not mentioned.
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