The prognostic and therapeutic potential of AMP-activated protein kinase in ovarian cancer

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-associated death in women. The high mortality is due to its poor prognosis as most cases are found in late stages. Therefore, searching reliable tumor markers is urgently needed for clinical management of this disease. Altered cellular metabolism is a crucial phenomenon for the development and progression of ovarian cancer. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) acts as a key intracellular energy sensor and regulator for governing energy balance homeostasis. It also closely links with cancer cell metabolism. Others and we have reported that the activation of AMPK by pharmacological agents shows cytotoxicity to cancer cells, indicating that targeting AMPK could be a promising therapeutic approach. On the other hand, our study also demonstrated that the AMPK activity had an inversely correlation between tumor stage and/or high grade ovarian cancer. Import...