Purpose: Aberrant expression of different tight junction proteins, including the junctional adhesion molecule-A (JAM-A), has been frequently reported in association with tumor progression of several malignancies. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining the clinical significance of JAM-A gene expression in epithelial ovarian cancer.
Methods: JAM-A expression levels in 44 epithelial ovarian cancer and 12 benign formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples were determined by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to determine the diagnostic and prognostic potential of JAM-A. Associations between JAM-A expression and clinicopathological characteristics of epithelial ovarian cancer were analyzed using Fisher's exact test. The Kaplan-Meier method and univariate Cox regression analysis were used for the survival analysis. P ⩽ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: ROC curve analyses showed that JAM-A gene expression exhibits both diagnostic and prognostic performance in epithelial ovarian cancer (area under the curve (AUC) 0.640, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.488, 0.792, sensitivity 43.18%, specificity 100% and AUC 0.621, 95% CI 0.427, 0.816, sensitivity 52.63%, specificity 85%, respectively). JAM-A expression was significantly associated with International Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO) stage (P =0.049) and the Kaplan-Meier method demonstrated that patients with high expression of JAM-A had significantly worse overall survival compared to patients with low JAM-A expression (P =0.004). Moreover, univariate Cox regression analysis showed that FIGO stage, peritoneal metastasis, residual tumor and JAM-A expression were significantly associated with reduced overall survival in epithelial ovarian cancer.
Conclusions: Our results indicate that high levels of JAM-A expression are associated with an advanced clinicopathological feature and may have diagnostic potential; also, it could be a predictor of poor overall survival in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.
Keywords: Epithelial ovarian cancer; JAM-A; prognostic factor; tight junctions.