Abstract 3542: Inhibition of HuR effectively suppresses ovarian tumor growth in mice

Ovarian cancer is the most deadly gynecologic cancer. To address the clinical need for a more effective therapy than currently exists, this investigation focused on targeting a post-transcriptional (RNA to protein) regulatory RNA-binding protein, HuR (Human antigen R, aka ELAVL1). HuR regulates the expression of multiple genes known to function in tumor cell survival and in drug resistance. It is abundant and hyper-functional in ovarian cancer cells as compared to normal cells, thus providing a therapeutic window. We investigated the effect of inhibiting HuR expression in ovarian tumor cells in culture and in ovarian tumors in mice. We generated A2780 and OVCAR5 cells that constitutively express either shHuR or a control shRNA, and assayed cell proliferation and the ability of these cells to produce colonies in a soft agar. Cell proliferation in both shRNA-expressing cell lines was significantly reduced compared to control shRNA-expressing cells (19% and 11% in A2780 and OVCAR5, respectively; p Citation Format: Janet A. Sawicki, Yu-Hung Huang, Jonathan R. Brody, Robert C. Getts, Kelly Rhodes, Jackie Gerhart. Inhibition of HuR effectively suppresses ovarian tumor growth in mice. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3542. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3542