The mechanism of cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer is not clearly understood. In the present investigation, we found that the expression levels of miR-497 were reduced in chemotherapy-resistant ovarian cancer cells and tumor tissues due to hypermethylation of miR-497 promoter. Low miR-497 expression levels were associated with chemo-resistant phonotype of ovarian cancer. By analyzing the expression levels of miR-497, mTOR and p70S6K1 in a clinical gene-expression array dataset, we found that mTOR and p70S6K1, two proteins correlated to chemotherapy-resistance in multiple types of human cancers, were inversely correlated with miR-497 levels in ovarian cancer tissues. By using an orthotopic ovarian tumor model and a Tet-On inducible miR-497 expression system, our results demonstrated that overexpression of miR-497 sensitizes the resistant ovarian tumor to cisplatin treatment. Therefore, we suggest that miR-497 might be used as a therapeutic supplement to increase ovarian cancer treatment response to cisplatin.
Keywords: cisplatin resistance; mTOR; miR-497; ovarian cancer; p70S6K1.