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Abstract #2766

Role of Choline Kinase and Phosphatidylcholine Phospholipase C in Aberrant Choline Metabolism in Human Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Egidio Iorio1, Marina Bagnoli2, Alessandro Ricci1, Maria Elena Pisanu1, Kristine Glunde3, Giancarlo Castellano2, Elisa Venturini4, Zaver M Bhujwalla3, Delia Mezzanzanica2, Silvana Canevari2, Franca Podo1

1Istituto Superiore di Sanit, Roma, Italy; 2Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano, Italy; 3Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; 4Cogentech-Consortium for Genomic Technologies, Milano, Italy


Altered phosphatidylcholine (PC) metabolism in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) can provide choline-based imaging approaches as powerful tools to improve diagnosis and identify new therapeutic targets. Measurements are reported on protein expression and enzyme activation of choline kinase (ChoK) and PC-specific phospholipase C (PC-plc) in EOC cell lines compared with non tumoral counterparts. The role of Chok and PC-plc in the intracellular accumulation of PCho in EOC cells was investigated by RNA silencing and pharmacological inhibition respectively. Analyses are also reported on ChoK mRNA expression and on ChoK and PC-plc protein expression in a set of surgical specimens from EOC patients.