Ovarian cancer is the gynecological cancer with the poorest prognosis. One significant reason is the development of resistance to the chemotherapeutic drugs used in its treatment. The large GTPase, hGBP-1, has been implicated in paclitaxel resistance in ovarian cell lines. Forced expression of hGBP-1 in SKOV3 ovarian cancer cells protects them from paclitaxel-induced cell death. However, prior to this study, nothing was known about whether hGBP-1 was expressed in ovarian tumors and whether its expression correlated with paclitaxel resistance. hGBP-1 is expressed in 17% of ovarian tumors from patients that have not yet received treatment. However, at least 80% of the ovarian tumors that recurred after therapies that included a tax-ane, either paclitaxel or docetaxel, were positive for hGBP-1. In addition, hGBP-1 expression predicts a significantly shorter progression-free survival in ovarian cancers. Based on these studies, hGBP-1 could prove to be a potential biomarker for paclitaxel resistance in ovarian cancer.
