Figure 1.

TOM40 is highly expressed by human epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) cells. (A) TOM40 mRNA levels were measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in human ovarian surface epithelial (HOSE) cells and EOC cell lines. Fold expression is expressed as the ratio of TOM40 mRNA/actin mRNA. Results represent the mean ± Standard Error., n = 3. Box plots were used to compare the expression levels of TOM40 in HOSE cells and EOC cell lines; * p < 0.05. (B) TOM40 protein expression levels were examined by western blot analysis in HOSE cells and EOC cells. TOM40 band intensities were quantified relative to α-actinin using Image J 1.48v software (Right, box plot); * p < 0.05. (C) mRNA expression levels of TOM40 in the tumors of patients with ovarian cancer were analyzed using data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (GEO accession numbers GSE18520, GSE26712, and GSE9899). p values compare normal tissue or tissue with low malignant potential (LMP) to cancerous tumor tissue (** p < 0.01 and *** p < 0.001). (D) Representative images of immunohistochemical staining of TOM40 expression in normal epithelial ovarian tissue and in benign, borderline, and cancerous ovarian tumors: The boxed regions are displayed at high magnification in the inset (scale bar: 100 μm). (E) Box plot depiction of immunohistochemical staining data. The histoscores were computed based on the intensity and tissue area of positive staining. N, normal; Be, benign, Bo, borderline; Ca, epithelial ovarian cancer. (F,G) Kaplan–Meier plots of disease-free survival and overall survival for ovarian cancer patients as categorized by TOM40 expression. Survival data for only 181 of 201 patients with EOC were available to construct Kaplan–Meier survival curves. The detailed information regarding statistical tests is available in the Materials and Methods section.